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SPEECHES 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM,  Ac,, 


JOHN  BRIGHT,  ESQ.,  M.P.; 


DELIVERED   DURING   THE   AUTUMN    OF   1866, 
TO    THE    PEOPLE    OF 

ENGLAND,    SCOTLAND,    AND    IRELAND,    AT    BIRMINGHAM, 

MANCHESTER,    LEEDS,    GLASGOW,    DUBLIN, 

AND    LONDON. 


REVISED    BY    HIMSELF. 


MANCHESTER  :  JOHN  HEYWOOD,  141  &  143,  DEANSGATE. 
LONDON:    SIMPKIN,     MARSHALL,     AND    Co. 

AND    ALT.    BOOKSELLERS, 


THIS      COLLECTION 

OF 

ME.    BEIGHT'S    SPEECHES 

ON- 
PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM, 

DELIVERED   BY   HIM  IN   THE   PRINCIPAL    CITIES   IK 

THE   UNITED    KINGDOM,    DURING    THE    AUTUMN    OF    1866, 

I 
IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED  TO 

THOMAS    BAYLEY    POTTER,    ESQ., 

THE  REPRESENTATIVE  IN  PARLIAMENT  OF    MR.    BRIGHT'S    NATIVE 
BOROUGH  OF  ROCHDALE,   AND  A  SINCERE  FRIEND 
OF  THE  PEOPLE, 

BY     THE     EDITOR. 


SPEECH  AT   BIRMINGHAM. 


ON  the  occasion  of  the  great  Reform  Demonstration  at  Birmingham, 
which  was  held  on  Monday,  the  27th  August,  Mr.  Bright  delivered 
the  following  speech  in  the  large  room  of  the  Town  Hall,  to  a 
crowded  and  enthusiastic  audience.  After  the  extraordinary 
cheering  which  greeted  his  rising  had  subsided,  the  hon.  gentleman 
said : — 

Mr.  May  or  and  gentlemen, — I  accept  the  address  which  has  just  been 
presented  to  me  with  feelings  which  I  shall  not  attempt  to  express. 
I  accept  it  as  ample  compensation  for  whatsoever  labours  I  have  expended 
in  your  service,  and  I  shall  take  it  from  this  meeting,  and  hold  it  as  a 
constant  stimulus  to  whatsoever  labours  may  lie  in  my  path  in  your 
service  for  the  future.  There  are  times  when  I  feel  no  little  despondency  at 
the  small  result  of  many  years  of  public  lahour ;  but  to  look  upon  a 
meeting  like  that  assembled  here,  and  to  look  upon  that  vast  gathering 
which  your  town  lias  exhibited  to  the  country  and  to  the  world  to-day,  is 
enough  to  dispel  every  feeling  of  fear  or  of  despondency,  and  to  fill  the 
heart  and  nerve  the  arm  to  new  and  greater  labours  for  the  future.  During 
the  last  session  of  Parliament,  in  the  debate  on  the  second  reading  of  the 
Franchise  Bill,  I  took  the  opportunity  of  offering  a  word  of  counsel  and  of 
warning  to  tlie  powerful  party  in  the  House  which  opposed  that  bill.  In 
those  words  of  warning  and  of  counsel  I  asked  them  to  remember 
that  if  they  should  succeed  in  defeating  that  bill  and  overthrowing  the 
Government,  there  would  still  remain  the  people  of  England  to  be  met,  and 
the  claims  of  the  great  question  of  reform  to  be  considered  and  settled.  We 
have  not  had  to  wait  long  before  that  which  I  foretold  has  come  to  pass. 
In  London  we  have  seen  assemblies  of  the  people  such  as  for  a  generation 
past  have  not  been  witnessed.  In  many  other  parts  of  the  country  there  have 
been  meetings  greater  than  have  been  seen  for  thirty  years,  and  notably 
to-day  there  has  been  a  voice  given  forth  from  the  very  centre  and  heartfof 
England  which  will  reach  at  least  to  the  circumference  of  the  three  king- 
doms. There  has  been  an  attempt  to  measure  the  numbers  that  are  present 
in  this  hall  at  this  moment.  There  are  probably  six  thousand  persons  here. 
I  ask  any  who  were  present  to-day  to  reckon  how  many  times  this  hall 
could  have  been  filled  from  that  multitudinous  congregation  upon  which  our 


2 

«yes  rested,  but  to  the  full  extent  of  which  they  could  scarcely  reach.     It  is 
highly  probable  that  it  might  have  been  filled  forty  times  from  that  vast 
number.    Yes,  and  at  this  moment  I   am  told  that   outside   there   is   an 
audience  far  greater  than  that  I  now  address  ;  whilst  to-morrow  morning 
there  will  be  millions  of  an  audience  throughout  the  whole  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  anxious  to  know  what  has  been  done  and  what  has  been  said  on 
this  27th  day  of  August  iu  this  great  town  of  Birmingham.     We  are  not  here 
to-night  to  discuss  the  question  of  reform,  because  that  is  a  question  which 
we  have  already  settled.      What  we  have  to  do  is  to  discuss  calmly  our 
present  position  and  our  future  work  in  reference  to  this  great  question.  My 
honourable  colleague  has  said  that  the  bill  of  the  late  Government  was  one 
of  singular  moderation.     It  was  also  a  bill — I  speak  now  only  of  the  Fran- 
chise Bill — of  a  singular  and  most  honest  simplicity  ;  and  that  was  the  great 
reason  that  I  felt  it  my  duty,  and  that  you  felt  it  yours,  to  give  it  an  honest 
support.     I  will  just  tell  you  how  much  and  how  little  it  proposed  to  give, 
or  would  have  given,  to  the  working  classes  of  this  country  ;  and  I  think  it 
necessary  to  state  this  because  of  the  argument  which  I  intend  to  raise  upon 
it.    The  Government  produced  to  the  House  of  Commons  a  blue  book,  most 
elaborately  compiled,  and  as  far  as  I  know,  with  the  exception  of  one  point, 
correct  and  trustworthy ;  but  they  proposed  to  inform  the  House  of  the 
number  of  working  men  who  are  now  upon  the  register,  and  what  addition 
would  be  made  to  that  number  if  the  bill  passed.     I  differed  entirely  from 
their  estimate,  which  I  believe  to  have  been  to  a  very  great  extent  erroneous, 
and  I  think  I  produced  facts  in  the  House  of  Commons  which  sustained  my 
opinion.     Mr.  Gladstone  told  us  that  at  present  there  are  on  the  borough 
registers  in  England  and  Wales  working  men  to  the  number  of  126,000.     He 
showed  further  that  by  the  abolition  of  the  ratepaying  clauses,  if  there  was 
no  alteration  in  the  £10  suffrage,  there   would  be   an  addition  of  60,000 
electors,   who,  he  reckoned,  would  all  be  working  men ;  and  then  he  said 
that  if  the  franchise  was  reduced  from  £10  to  £7,  there  would  be  a  further 
.  addition  of  144, 000,  all  of  whom  he  estimated  as  working  men .       Therefore 
'  he  stated  that  when  that  bill  passed  there  would  be  on  the  borough  registers 
of  England  and  Wales   330,000  working  men,  of  whom  204,000  would 
be  new  voters  added  by  that  bill.      I  believe  that  estimate  was  made  with 
perfect  honesty  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  but  that  it  was  to  a  very  large  extent 
erroneous.     I  showed  several  boroughs,  and  I  believe  I  might  have  gone 
through  almost    every  borough    in    the  United    Kingdom,    where    the 
number  of    working    men   stated  in  the   returns  was    at    least    double, 
and    in     many    cases     far     more     than     double,    the    actual     number 
upon    the    register.       I   estimated,    also,    that    although    the    abolition 
of    the    ratepaying    clauses    might    add    60,000    new    votes,    it    would 
l>e    very    unfair    to    expect     that     more    than    one-third,     or    20,000 
of  them — being  ten  pounders  and  upwards — would  be  of  the  class  of  working 
men.     1  said  further  that  it  was  absurd  to  reckon  that  every  man  between 
£10  and  £7  was  of  the  class  of  working  men,  and  I  supposed  that  at  least  no 
more  than  two-thirds  of  them  could  be  placed  in  that  list.      My  estimate 
differed,  therefore,  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  thus  far.   I  said  that  of  the  126,000 
now  upon  the  register  there  were  not  more  than  the  half,  or  63,000;  instead 


of  there  being  60,000  admitted  by  the  abolition  of  the  ratepaying  clause, 
there  would  not  be  more  than  20,000;  and  that,  instead  of  there  being  144,000 
•working  men  admitted  by  the  reduction  of  the  franchise  from  £10  to  £7,  it 
was  a  fair  estimate  to  take  two-thirds  of  that  number,  or  96,000.      My 
opinion  therefore,  was,  that  when  that  bill  passed,  if  it  should  pass,  there 
would  be  upon  the  borough  registers  of  England  and  Wales,  not  330,000  of 
working  men,  but  179,000,  and  that  the  bill  would  not  admit  204,000  but 
only  1 16,000  of  that  class.    Take  either  my  estimate  of  116,000  or  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's estimate  of  204,000  as  the  number  of  working  men  to  be  added  by 
the  late  bill  to  the  register,  and  I  will  ask  you  what,  after  all,  does  it  all 
come  to?     204,000  working  men  according  to  the  Government  estimate, 
116,000  according  to  mine,  and  in  addition  about  200,000  new  voters  added 
to  the  counties  under  a  £14  franchise,  who  must  of  necessity  be  almost 
altogether  outside  the  working  classes.   That  was  the  bill  which  my  honour- 
able colleague  has  described  as  one  of  singular  moderation.     Out  of  five  or 
six  millions  of  men  in  the  United  Kingdom  who  are  not  now  enfranchised, 
the  whole  number  of  the  working  classes  to  be  admitted  in  the  boroughs  of 
England  and  "Wales  was  only  200,000.     Now  that  bill,  so  moderate  that  I 
confess  I  had  entertained  the  hope  that  it  would  pass  through  Parliament 
without  any  great  difficulty,  was  resisted  as  if  it  had  been  charged  with  all 
the  dangerous  matter  which  the  Tory  party  actually  attributed  to  it.      It 
was  intrigued  against  in  a  manner — I  had  almost  said  more  base,  but  I  will 
say  more  hateful  than  any  measure  I  have  seen  opposed  during  the  23  yeara 
that  I  have  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and,  finally,  under  every  kind  of 
false  pretence,  it  was  rejected  by  a  small  majority,  and  fell,  and  with  it  the 
Government  which  had  proposed  it  also  fell.     The  reason  I  have  given  you 
these  figures  is  that  I  want  to  show  you  the  desperate  resolution  of  the 
present  Government,  and  of  the  party  which  it  represents,  to  deny  to  the 
working  classes  of  this  country  any  share  in  its  government.     I  am  not 
confined  to  the  votes  of  the  House  and  the  destruction  of  the  bill,  but  I  am 
able,  I  think,  to  show  you  by  the  arguments  upon  which  the  Tory  party  pro- 
ceeded that  such  is  their  determination,  and  it  may  be  their  unchangeable 
resolution.     Several  of  the  speakers  to-night  have  referred  to  the  slanders 
and  calumnies  heaped  upon  the  great  body  of  the  people  during  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  last  session;   and,  no  doubt,  although  his  name  was  not 
mentioned,  the  speakers  had  in    their  minds  one  member  of  the  House 
who     virtually    has    no    constituency — whose    sole    constituent,    at    any 
rate  at  that    time,    is    now    no    longer   here   to    partake    of   the    strife 
or  the  contests  of   politics,  though  I    presume   another  constituent    acts 
and  reigns  in  his  stead.       If    I    quote  anything  that  Mr.   Lowe    said, 
understand  me  that  I  wish  to  bring  no  charge  against  him  whatsoever. 
He  has  spent  some  years  in  Australia,  and  probably  has  voyaged  round  the 
world  ;  and  I  do  not  deny  him  the  right  to  voyage  round  the  world  of 
politics — and  to  cast  anchor  in  any  port  that  may  be  pleasant  to  him.     I 
merely  intend  to  quote  something  that  he  said,  because  when  it  was  said  it 
was  received  with  rapturous  enthusiasm  by  the  great  party  in  the  House 
who  are  the  supporters  of  Lord  Derby  and  of  Mr.  Disraeli.    This  is  extracted 
from  the  Times  newspaper,  a  paper  in  which,  as  is  well  known,  the  speaker 


has  been  for  many  years  an  eminent  writer,  and  over  which,  unless  reports 
speak  untruly,  he  has  no  small  degree  of  control.     He  says  :    "  I  have  had 
opportunities  of  knowing  some  of  the  constituencies  of  this  country  ;  and  I 
ask  if  you  want  venality,  ignorance,  drunkenness,  and  the  means  of  intimi- 
dating— if  you  want  impulsive,   unreflecting,   violent  people — where  would 
you  go  to  look  for  them  ?    To  the  top  or  to  the  bottom  ?     It  is  ridiculous  to 
blink  the  fact  that  since  the  Reform  Act  the  great  corruption  has  been  among 
the  voters  between  £20  and  £10  rental — the  lodging-house  and  beerhouse 
keepers  ;"   '•  but  it  is  said,   Only  give  the  franchise  to  the  artisan  and  then 
see  the  difference."     He  goes  on — passing  a  sentence  which  was  a  classical 
illustration  which  amused  the  House,  but  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  quote 
here.     He   said  :     "  You  know  what  sort  of  persons  live  in  these   small 
houses" — houses,  of  course,  between  £10  and  £7.      "  We  have  long  had  ex- 
perience of  them  under  the  name  of  freemen,  and  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if 
they  were  disfranchised  altogether.     They  were  dying  out  of  themselves, 
but  the  Government  propose  to  bring  them  back  again  under  another  name, 
so  that  the  effect  of  passing  this  bill  would  be,  first,   to  increase  corruption, 
intimidation,  and  all  the  evils  that  happen  usually  in  elections ;  and  next 
that  the  working  men  of  England,  finding  themselves  in  a  full  majority  of 
the  whole  constituency,  will  awake  to  a  full  sense  of   their  power,  and  say, 
'  We  can  do  better  for  ourselves.     Don't  let  us  any  longer  be  cajoled  at 
elections.     Let  us  set  up  shop  for  ourselves.     We  have  objects  to  carry  as 
well  as  our  neighbours,  and  let  us  unite  to  carry  those  objects.     We  have  the 
machinery.     We  have  our  trades  unions.   We  have  our  leaders  ready.   (Loud 
Opposition  cheers,  and  laughter. )     We  have  the  power  of  combination  as  we 
have  shown  over  and  over  again,  and  when  we  have  a  prize  to  fight  for  we 
will  bring  it  to  bear  with  tenfold  more  force  than  ever  before.'  "     These  are 
the  sentiments  which,  uttered  in  my  hearing,  were  received  with  enthusias- 
tic approbation  by  the  great  body  of  the  Tory  party  and  by  the  supporters 
of  the  present  Government.    Observe  what  it  really  means.    It  is  that  voters 
now  between  £'20  rental  and  £10  are  so  bad  that  if  you  go  lower  it  will  be 
something  like   ruin.     That  there  will  be  more  venality,  ignorance,   and 
drunkenness  ;  and  then,  speaking  to  the  House  of  Commons — in  which  the 
landed  proprietors,  or  the  bulk  of  them,  have  always  acted  as  a  general  trades' 
union,  where  they  raised  the  price  of  bread  and  diminished  the  size  of  the  loaf  as 
long  as  the  people  would  let  them — he  says  there  will  be  combinations  of  work- 
ing men  for  their  special  objects,  and  therefore — mind,  this  is  his  conclusion — 
shut  them  out  for  ever;  bolt  the  door, — say,  loudly  and  boldly,  you,  the 
Parliament  of  England,  to  the  5,000,000  or  6,000,000  of  men  who  have  now 
no  vote,  and  whom  we  pretend  to  represent,  —  "No  one  of  you  who  cannot 
pay  a  rental  of  £10  shall  ever  speak  by  his  direct  representative  within  the 
walls  of  this  House. "     That  is  the  policy  which  Mr.  Lowe  recommends.     It 
is  not  important  at  all  because  Mr.  Lowe  recommends  it.      It  is  important 
only  because  it  has  been  accepted  and  approved  by  the  great  Tory  party  in 
Parliament.     However,  I  say — I  who  am  charged  with  designs  against  the 
safety  of  the  institutions  of  this  country — I  say  it  is  a  dangerous  policy — a 
policy  which  in  other  countries  where  carried  out  has  done  great  things. 
Through  it  crowns  and  coronets  have  sometimes  been  lost,   and  I  am  not 


sure  that  it  is  a  policy  which  can  be  safely  maintained  with  us.      I  asked 
one  of  the  most  trusted  and  intelligent  and  excellent  Frenchmen  with 
whom  I  am  acquainted,  one  of  the  most  confidential  friends  of  the  dynasty 
of  Louis  Phillippe  and  of  the  Orleans  family,  what  it  was  that  drove  that 
family  from  France,  and  I  referred  to  stories  of  corruption  amongst  minis- 
ters and  other  things  which  had  been  circulated  in  public  and  in  private. 
He  said  :   "  None  of  these  things  did  it.      It  was  the  attempt  of  the  King 
to  govern  France  by  a  parliament  that  represented  an  insignificant  minority  of 
the  people,  and  which  parliament  he  thought  he  could  perpetually  manage 
by  a  judicious  distribution  of  patronage."     On  the  principle  of  governing 
this  country  by  a  Parliament  elected  by  an  insignificant  minority  of  the 
people,  Lord  Derby  comes  into  office,  and  judging  from  the  speeches  and 
the  votes  of  the  last  session  of  Parliament,  his  party  intends  as  long  as 
possible  to  govern  upon  that  principle  and  that  policy.     Working  men  in 
this  hall,  I  wish  my  voice  had  been  loud  enough  to  have  said  what  I  am 
about  to  say  to  the  vast  multitude  which  we  looked  on  this  day  ;  but  I  say 
it  to  them  through  the  press,  and  to  all  the  working  men  of  this  kingdom, 
I  say  that  the  accession  to  office  of  Lord  Derby  is  a  declaration  of  war 
against  the  working  classes.     (Cheers,    and  a   voice  from  the  platform, 
"We  accept  the  challenge.")     The  course  taken  in  London  the  other  day 
by  the  police,  and  it  had  almost  been  by  the  military,  is  an  illustration  of 
the  doctrines  and  the  principles  of  the  Derby  administration.     They  reckon 
nothing  of  the  constitution  of  their  country — a  constitution  which  has  no 
more  regard  to  the  crown  or  to  the  aristocracy  than  it  has  to  the  people — a 
constitution  which  regards  the  House  of  Commons  fairly  representing  all 
the  nation,  as  important  a  part  of  the  governmental  system  of  this  king- 
dom as  either  the  House  of  Lords  or  the  throne  itself.     If  they  thus  despise 
the  constitution  they  like  wise  despise  the  claims  of  five  millions  or  six  millions 
who  are  unrepresented.  You  may  work,  you  may  pay  taxes,  you  may  serve 
in  the  army,  and  fight ;  70, 000  or  more  of  your  brethren  are  now  living  under 
the  burning  sun  of  India,  and  twice  as  many  more  are  serving  in  the  ranks 
in  different  parts  of  the  world  ;  and  you,  the  great  body  of  the  people  from 
whom  these  men  are  drawn,  are  not  considered  worthy  to  do  so  simple  an 
act  as  to  give  a  vote  in  your  great  town  for  your  present  or  any  future  mem- 
bers.   You  are  to  have  no  vote,  no  share  in  the  Government ;  the  country 
you  live  in  is  not  to  be  your  country.    You  are  like  the  Coolies  or  the 
Chinese  who  are  imported  into  the  West  Indies  or  California.     You  are  to 
work,  but  you  are  not  to  take  root  in  the  country,  or  to  considerjthe  country 
ns  your  country,  and,  worse  than  all  this,  in  addition  to  this  refusal  of  the 
commonest  right  of  the  constitution,  you  are  insulted  by  the  cheers  which  a 
great  party  have  given  to  the  language  which  1  have  read  to  you  to-night. 
You  are  to  be  told  that  you  are  so  ignorant  and  so  venal,  so  drunken,   so 
impulsive,  so  unreflecting,  and  so  disorderly  that  it  is  not  even  safe  to  skim 
•off  as  it  were  the  very  cream  of  you  to  the  number  of  116,000,  or  it  may  be 
of  204,000,  and  to  admit  them  to  a  vote  for  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons.    This  is  the  Tory  theory.     This  is  the  faith  of  Lord  Derby  and  his 
party,  and  I  maintain  that  I  am  not  saying  a  word  that  is  an  exaggeration 
of  the  truth,  for  1  have  heard  that  party  over  and  over  again  vociferously 


6 

cheer  sentiments  such  as  I  have  described.  The  Government  which  has  been 
overturned  was  a  very  different  Government.     Lord  Russell  had  no  fear  of 
freedom.     He  could  much  more  easily  be  persuaded  to  give  up,  and  he  would 
much  more  willingly  abandon  for  ever  the  name  of  Russell  than  he  would  give 
up,  his  hereditary  love  of  freedom.     The  Government,  which  was  led  by  Earl 
Russell  in  one  House  and  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  other,  was  founded  and  acted 
upon  the  principle  of  trust  and  confidence  in  the  people.     Some  said  there 
was  not  much  difference  between  the  Derby  Government  and  the  Russell 
Government.     Lord  Derby  asked  Lord   Clarendon  to  take   office  in  his 
Government.     There  was  something  charming  in  the  very  audacity  of  the 
effrontery  of  Lord  Derby.     Lord  Clarendon  was  an  eminent  minister  of  the 
Government  that  brought  in  a  bill  which  the  Tory  party  declared  to  be  sub- 
versive of  the  constitution  ;  and  Lord  Derby  asks  Lord  Clarendon  to  keep 
the  Foreign-office  in  the  new  Government !    The  Government  of  Lord  Derby 
in  the  House  of  Commons  sitting  all  in  a  row  reminds  me  very  much  of  a 
number  of  amusing  and  ingenious  gentlemen  whom  I  daresay  some  of  you 
have  seen  and  listened  to.    I  mean  the  Christy  Minstrels.     The  Christy 
Minstrels,  if  I  am  not  misinformed,  are,  when  they  are  clean  washed,  white 
men  ;  but  they  come  before  the  audience  as  black  as  the  blackest  negroes, 
and  by  this  transformation  it  is  expected  that  their  jokes  and  songs  will  be 
more  amusing.     The  Derby  minstrels  pretend  to  be  Liberal  and  white  ;  but 
the  fact  is  if  you  come  nearer  and  examine  them  closely  you  will  find 
them  to  be  just  as  black  and  curly  as  the  Tories  have  ever  been.     I  do 
not  know,  and  I  will  not  pretend  to  say,   which  of  them  it  is  that  plays 
the    banjo    and    which    the    bones.      But    I    have     no    doubt  that,    in 
their    manoeuvres    to    keep    in    office   during    the    coming    session,    we 
shall    know    something    more    about    them    than    we    do    at    present; 
they  are,   in  point   of    fact,    when    they  pretend  to    be    Liberal,    mere 
usurpers  and  impostors.     Their  party  will  not  allow  them  to  be  liberal,  and 
the  party  exists  only  upon  the  principle  upon  which  they  have  acted  in  all 
their  past  history  of  resisting  and  rejecting  every  proposition  of  a  liberal 
character  that  has  been  submitted  to  them.     "What  is  this  Derby  principle 
of  shutting  out  more  than  five-sixths  of  all  the  people  from  the  exercise  of 
constitutional  rights  ?    If  any  of  you  take  ship  to  Canada  you  will  find  the 
Derby  principle  utterly  repudiated.     But  in  Canada  there  is  no  uprooting 
of  institutions,  and  no  destruction  of  property,  and  there  is  no  absence  of 
order  or  of  loyalty.     If  you  go  to  Australia  you  will  find  there  that  the 
Derby  principle  is  unknown,  and  yet  there  reigns  order  as  in  this  country, 
contentment  with  the  institutions  of  the  colonies,  and  a  regard  for  law  and 
property.     If  you  go  to  those  greatest  and  most  glorious  colonies  of  this 
country,  the  United  States  of  America,    there  you  find  a  people  exhibiting 
all  the  virtues  which  belong  to  the  greatest  nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ; 
there  you  find  a  people  passing  through  a  tremendous  war  and  a  tremendous 
revolution  with  a  conduct  and  success,  with  a  generosity  and  a  magnanimity 
which  have  attracted  and  aroused  the  admiration  of  the  world;  and  if  you 
go  to  Europe  you  find  in  the  republic  of  Switzerland,    in  the  kingdoms 
of  Holland  and  Belgium,  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  in  France,  and  now  you 
are  about  to  witness  it  in  Germany,  a  wide  extension  of  the  franchise,  hitherto, 


in  this  country,  in  our  time,  unknown;  and  neither  emperor,  king,  nor  noble 
believes  that  his  authority  or  his  interests,  or  the  greatness  or  happiness  of 
any  one  of  those  countries  will  be  jeopardised  by  the  free  admission  of  the 
people  to  constitutional  rights.  In  Germany,  the  vote  is  to  be  given  to 
every  man  of  25  years  of  age  and  upwards.  Let  them  propose  to  da  the 
same  here,  and  then  we  shall  not  be  in  advance  of  the  great  State  of  North 
Germany  which  is  now  being  established.  But  what  is  it  we  are  coming  to 
in  this  country  ?  Why,  that  that  which  is  being  rapidly  accepted  in  almost 
all  parts  of  the  world  is  being  persistently  and  obstinately  refused  here  in 
England,  the  home  of  freedom,  the  mother  of  parliaments.  Yet  in  this 
England  five  millions  of  grown  men,  representing  more  than  20, 000, 000  of 
our  population,  are  to  be  permanently  denied  that  which  makes  the  only 
difference  between  despotism  and  freedom  all  the  world  over.  I  venture  to 
say  that  this  cannot  last  very  long.  How  do  we  stand  at  this  moment  ? 
The  noble  and  illustrious  lady  who  sits  upon  the  throne — she  whose  gentle 
hand  wields  the  sceptre  over  that  wide  empire  of  which  we  are  the  heart 
and  centre — she  was  not  afraid  of  the  Franchise  Bill  which  the  Government 
introduced  last  session.  Seven  times,  I  think,  by  her  own  lips  or  by  her 
pen,  she  has  recommended  to  Parliament  the  admission  of  a  large  number  of 
working  men  to  the  Parliamentary  franchise.  If  this  proposition  was 
destructive,  would  not  the  Queen  discover  that  fact  ?  If  the  bill  of  the  last 
session  had  been  a  pernicious  bill,  would  the  30,000,000  of  people  of  the 
United  Kingdom  not  have  been  able  to  produce  one  single  public  meeting 
in  condemnation  of  it  ?  The  middle  class  in  our  towns  are  by  a  vast  majority 
in  favour  of  it.  All  the  middle  class  of  Birmingham  have  sympathised  with 
the  great  proceedings  of  this  day,  and  I  doubt  not  that  by-and-bye  we  shall 
see  in  the  populous  districts  of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  assemblies  rivalling 
those  which  have  been  held  in  London  and  Birmingham,  and  if  we  go  to  the 
House  of  Commons — that  House  elected  so  much  by  landlord  compulsion  in 
the  counties,  and  by  corruption,  intimidation,  and  tumult  in  the  boroughs — do 
not  suppose  that  I  am  charging  that  House  of  Commons  with  faults  that  it 
does  not  itself  understand  and  acknowledge : — have  you  read  the  report  of 
the  proceedings  at  the  commission  for  Yarmouth  ?  Did  you  read  that  a  late 
member  for  that  borough  is  said  to  have  spent  £70,000  to  maintain  his  seat  ? 
Did  you  read  that  one  gentleman,  an  inferior  partner  in  a  brewery,  con- 
tributed £4, 000  for  the  election  of  his  partner,  and  that  another  gentleman, 
knowing  nothing  of  that  borough  goes  down  there  and  supplies  £6,000  to 
fight  a  contest  spread  then  only  orer  a  few  days?  and  remember  that  when 
Yarmoiith  or  any  other  borough  is  thus  brought  before  the  public  it  is  only 
a  sample  of  a  very  considerable  sack — and  that  for  every  borough  which  is 
thus  exposed  there  are  probably  10  or  20  other  boroughs  which  are  to  a  very 
large  extent  in  the  very  same  condemnation.  Notwithstanding  this,  if 
we  go  to  the  House  of  Commons,  we  find  the  Parliament  of  England 
at  this  moment  about  equally  divided,  and  that  half  the  House  was 
in  favour  of  the  late  bill.  If  that  be  so,  what  is  wanted  in  this  poising 
and  balancing  of  the  scale?  It  only  wants  this,  that  the  working 
men  of  England  should  heartily  throw  their  influence  into  that  side  which, 
is  for  their  interests,  and  that  side  will  prevail.  You  know  I  have  preferred 


8 

that  the  franchise  should  be  established  upon  what  I  consider  to  be  the 
ancient  practice  of  the  country.  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  principles  of  the 
Reform  League.  I  have  no  fear  of  manhood  sufferage ,  and  no  man  is  more 
a  friend  of  the  ballot  than  T  am.  It  is  a  great  cause  which  is  offered  to  your 
notice  to-night.  It  is  a  grand  and  noble  Hag  under  which  you  are  asked  to 
enlist  yourselves.  What  I  would  recommend  you  to  do  is  this — and  I 
imagine  myself  at  this  moment  to  be  speaking  in  the  ear  of  every  intelligent, 
sober,  and  thoughtful  working  man  in  the  three  kingdoms — let  us  try  to 
move  on  together  ;  let  us  not  split  hairs  on  this  question  ;  let  us  do  as  your 
fathers  did  thirty-four  years  ago  ;  let  us  have  associations  everywhere ;  let 
every  workshop  and  factory  be  a  reform  association  ;  let  there  be  in  every 
one  of  them  a  correspondent,  or  a  secretary  who  shall  enrol  members  and 
assist  this  great  and  noble  cause.  I  would  recommend  that  the  passages  I 
have  read  from  that  celebrated  and  unhappy  speech  should  be  printed  upon 
cards,  and  should  be  hung  up  in  every  room  in  every  factory,  workshop, 
and  clubhouse,  and  in  every  place  where  working  men  are  accustomed  to 
assemble.  Let  us  rouse  the  spirit  of  the  people  against  these  slanderers  of 
a  great  and  noble  nation.  There  will  come  soon  another  election.  The 
working  men  may  not  be  able  to  vote,  but  they  can  form  themselves  into  a 
powerful  body,  and  they  can  throw  their  influence  in  every  borough  on  the 
side  of  the  candidates  who  pledge  themselves  to  the  question  of  reform.  If 
they  do  this,  you  may  depend  upon  it  they  will  change  many  seats,  and 
give  a  certain  majority  for  reform  in  the  next  Parliament.  It  may  be 
necessary  and  desirable  to  meet  Parliament  again  with  petitions  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  signed  by  numberless  names.  There  is  no  effort  which 
the  constitution,  which  morality  permits  us  to  use,  that  we  should  leave 
unused  and  unmade  for  the  purpose  of  furthering  this  great  cause  ;  and  let 
us  be  sure  of  this,  that  we  demand  only  that  the  question  of  reform  shall 
be  dealt  with  by  a  Government  honestly  in  favour  of  reform.  The  address 
which  has  been  presented  to  me  has  referred  to  1832.  I  remember  that  time 
welL  My  young  heart  then  was  stirred  with  the  trumpet  blast  that  sounded 
from  your  midst.  There  was  no  part  of  this  kingdom  where  your  voice  was 
not  heard.  Let  it  sound  again.  Stretch  out  your  hands  to  your  country- 
men in  every  part  of  the  three  kingdoms,  and  ask  them  to  join  you  in  a  great 
and  righteoiis  effort  on  behalf  of  that  freedom  which  has  been  so  long  the 
boast  of  Englishmen,  but  which  the  majority  of  Englishmen  have  never  yet 
possessed.  I  shall  esteem  it  an  honour  which  my  words  cannot  describe, 
and  which  even  in  thought  I  cannot  measure,  if  the  population  which  I  am 
permitted  to  represent  should  do  its  full  duty  in  the  great  struggle  which  is 
before  us.  Eemember  the  great  object  for  which  we  strive.  Care  not  for 
calumnies  and  lies.  Our  object  is  this — to  restore  the  British  constitution 
all  its  fulness,  with  all  its  freedom,  to  the  British  people. 


ON  the  24th  of  September,  in  the  Free- trade  Hall,  Manchester, 
which  was  crowded  almost  to  suffocation  by  upwards  of  5,000 
persons,  Mr.  Bright  was  presented  with  an  Address  by  the  Reform 
League  recently  established  in  that  city.  In  accepting  it,  Mr. 
Bright  spoke  as  follows  : — 

I  was  not  aware  when  I  was  invited  to  attend  this  meeting  that  anything 
different  from  the  ordinary  course  of  proceedings  would  take  place.     I  was 
not  informed  that  I  should  be  honoured  by  the  presentation  of  any  address. 
I  accept  this  address  with  many  thanks  for  the  kindness  which  you  have 
shown  me  ;  at  the  same   time  I  accept  it  with   something  like  fear  and 
trembling,  because  of  the  mighty  responsibility  which  by  this  address  you 
would  throw  upon  me.     I  have  never  had  any  ambition  for  leadership  ;  I 
do  not  feel  myself  to  have  fitness  for  such  an  office.     I  have  worked  hitherto 
wheresoever  I  chanced  to  be,   whether  in  the  ranks  or  in  the  front ;  and 
without  pledging  myself  to  undertake  all  that  this  address  asks  of  me  to 
undertake,     and    perform,    I    may,    however,    freely    pledge   myself   to 
this,  that  wherever  I  find  men  willing  to  work  for  human  freedom  and  human 
happiness,    I  trust  I  shall  be  ready  to  take  my  part  with  them.      And 
now,    as  my  eye    has    rested    upon   this    wonderful    assembly,    I  have 
thought  it  not  wrong  to  ask  myself  whether  there  is  any  question  that 
is  great,  that  is  sufficient,  that  is  noble,  that  has  called  us  together  to-night, 
and  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  great  as   is  this   meeting,  and 
transcendaiitly  great  the  meeting  which  was  held  in  the  middle  of  the  day, 
that  the  question  which  has  brought  us  together  is    worthy  of  our  assembly 
aad  worthy  of  every  effort  we  can  make.   We  are  met  for  the  purpose,  so  far 
as  lies  in  our  power,  of  widening  the  boundaries  and  making  more  stable  the 
foundations  of  the  freedom  of  the  country  in  which  we  live.     We  are  not  as 
our  fathers  were  200  years  ago,  called  upon  to  do  battle  with  the  Crown;  we 
have  no  dynasty  to  complain  of,  no  royal  family  to  dispossess.     In  our  day 
the  wearer  of  the  crown  of  England  is  in  favour  of  freedom.      For  on  many 
separate  occasions,  as  you  all  know,  the  Queen  has  strongly,  as  strongly  as 
became  her  station,  urged  upon  Parliament  the  extension  of  the  franchise 
of  the  people.     Parliament  has  been  less  liberal  than  the  Crown,  and  time 
after  time  these  recommendations  have  been  disregarded,  and  the  offers  of 
the  monarch  have  been  rejected  and  denied.     But  no  more  of  that  now;  and 
it  is  not  our  business  to-night  to  assail  the  hereditary  branch  of  the  legis- 
lature— the  House  of  Peers.     For  my  share,  I  cannot  but  think  that  if  there 
are  dangers  ahead  for  the  House  of  Lords  they  are  dangers  not  so  much  from 
without  as  from  within.     Its  foes  in  my  view  are  those  of  its  own  household. 
It  stands  in  the  high  place  of  a  senate,  but  it  too  much  abdicates  the  duties 
of  a  senate  ;  it  gives  its  votes,  its  power,  its  proxies  into  the  hands  of  one 


10 

man,  and  he  often,  and  as  at  present,  is  not  by  any  means  the  wisest  of  men. 
Unfortunately  for  that  House  it  does  almost  nothing;  it  does  not  even 
debate  freely,  and  the  session  will  pass  and  you  scarcely  hear  any  discussion 
in  that  House  which  is  calculated  to  instruct  the  people  on  political  subjects. 
I  sometimes  fear  that  it  is  no  longer  a  temple  of  honour,  the  path  to  which 
leads  through  the  temple  of  virtue .  It  has  become  too  much  the  refuge  for 
worn-out  members  of  the  House  of  Commons;  it  becomes  every  year  more 
numerous,  without,  I  fear,  becoming  more  useful,  and  unless  it  can  wake 
itself  up  to  the  great  duties  of  a  senate,  decay  and  darkness  will  settle  upon 
it.  Some  of  its  members  may  read  what  I  say.  I  beg  to  assure  them  that 
in  these  few  observations  I  am  speaking  in  no  unfriendly  spirit  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  But  we  have  a  distinct  purpose  to-night,  and  our  purpose  is  this, 
to  restore  the  representation  of  the  people,  to  make  the  House  of  Commons, 
the  House  which  professes  to  represent  the  common  people,  a  reality  and  no 
longer  a  sham.  Now,  the  facts  of  our  representation  are  simple,  the  im- 
portant facts  can  be  stated  in  about  two  sentences.  I  think  at  every  reform 
meeting  they  should  be  restated,  and  they  should  fix  themselves  in  the  mind 
of  every  reformer  throughout  the  country.  I  am  charged  with  telling 
things  that  everybody  knows;  well,  if  we  tell  them  often  enough  everybody 
will  know.  This  is  a  fact,  and  it  is  worth  mentioning,  that  there  are  seven 
millions  of  grown-up  men  responsible  to  the  laws  in  the  United  Kingdom  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland;  that  of  these  about  one  million  and  a  quarter  are 
on  the  list  of  voters;  that  exclusive  of  paupers  and  exclusive  of  criminals — 
though  I  am  sorry  to  mention  these  two  classes  in  the  same  sentence — ex- 
clusive of  these,  to  whom  no  man  proposes  to  give  the  franchise,  there  are 
five  millions  of  men  in  the  United  Kingdom  who  have  no  votes.  Of  the 
million  and  a  quarter  who  have  votes  the  counties  take  up  about  750,000, 
and  the  boroughs  about  550,000.  Xow,  1  shall  say  that  which  some  men 
will  contradict,  but  which  I  venture  to  say  is  true,  when  I  declare  that  for 
the  most  part  the  county  representation  in  this  country  is  not  a  popular 
representation  in  any  honest  sense  of  that  term.  We  know  that  with  a 
franchise  of  £50  occupation  and  the  freehold  franchise  added  to  it,  that 
the  great  body  of  the  people  in  every  county  is  excluded  from  the 
elective  (franchise.  Well,  I  regard  the  county  representation  to  a  very  large 
extent  as  a  dead  body  tied  to  the  living  body  of  our  borough  representation. 
I  believe  it  will  become  less  so.  In.  Ireland  there  are  some  free  counties  ;  in 
Scotland  there  are  some,  and  there  will  be  more.  But  still,  taking  the 
county  representation  as  a  whole,  it  is  in  a  most  unsatisfactory  condition. 
Well,  but,  of  the  boroughs  where  there  is  life  and  where  there  is  some 
freedom,  what  is  their  condition  ?  Only  one  fact.  There  are  145  boroughs 
with  over  20,000  inhabitants  each,  and  they  return  215  members  ;  there  are 
109  boroughs  with  over  20,000  of  population,  and  they  return  181  members. 
But  look  at  the  difference  in  the  number  of  voters,  the  number  of  the  popu- 
lation, and  the  amount  of  taxation.  It  is  something  startling  and  enormous. 
The  boroughs  under  20,000  have  79,000  electors  ;  the  boroughs  over  20,000 
have  485,000  electors.  The  boroughs  under  20,000  have  1,350,000  people  ; 
the  boroughs  over  20,000  have  9,305,000  people.  The  boroughs  under 
20,000  pay  £367,000  in  taxation  ;  the  boroughs  over  20,000  pay  £5,240,000 


11 

in  taxation  ;  and  yet  the  boroughs  under  20,000  have  215  members,  as 
against  181  members  for  boroughs  over  20,000.  Now,  I  am  sure  you  will 
agree  with  me  in  this,  that  the  representation  which,  as  regards  the  fran- 
chise, shuts  out  five  millions  of  men,  and  which,  as  regards  distribution, 
leaves  the  state  of  things  which  I  have  now  described,  can  only  be  fairly 
pictured  when  1  call  it  a  stupendous  fraud  upon  the  people.  The  counties — 
I  have  Lord  Derby's  own  authority  for  it — the  counties  are  politically  th« 
hunting  ground  of  the  great  landowners.  Lord  Derby  said,  "if  you  will 
tell  me  the  politics  of  a  few  of  the  chief  landowners  in  the  county  I  will  tell 
you  the  politics  of  the  county  members. "  The  boroughs,  what  are  they? 
Manchester  knows  no  bribery,  nor  does  Birmingham  ;  but  of  the  boroughs 
of  20,000  population  and  under,  how  many  of  them  are  full  of  corruption  ? 
There  are  small  boroughs,  such  as  Banbury,  Tavistock,  and  Liskeard,  where, 
I  believe,  great  honour  and  purity  prevail ;  but  the  bulk  of  these  boroughs 
are  accessible  to  the  influence  of  any  man  who  will  come  there  with  plenty 
of  money  in  his  pocket,  and  no  principles  or  morals  in  his  heart.  In  point 
of  fact,  without  any  exaggeraion,  we  may  say  that  all  the  evils  which  are 
possible  to  influence  an  electoral  system  are  amply  provided  for  by  the 
electoral  laws  of  England.  Compulsion,  bribery,  drunkenness,  lavish  and 
disgraceful  expenditure,  all  these  not  only  exist  but  are  absolutely  inevitable 
under  the  state  of  the  law  which  now  prevails  ;  and  I  venture  to  say — and 
I  never  said  anything  in  my  lif e  which  I  would  more  easily  undertake  to 
prove — that  there  is  no  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  where  ambitious  and 
unprincipled  and  rich  men  come  into  contact  with  small  numbers  of  voters  ; 
there  is  no  remedy  whatsoever  but  in  large  constituencies  and  the  security 
of  the  ballot.  Now  if  I  have  fairly  described  the  state  of  things,  can  we 
wonder  at  the  difficulty  which  meets  us  when  we  have  any  question  before 
Parliament  ?  Look  back  at  the  question  of  the  corn  laws,  look  back  on  the 
question  of  the  paper  duty,  look  back  or  look  now  on  the  question  of  our 
disgraceful  expenditure,  and  you  will  find  that  on  every  occasion  when  the 
people  ask  for  any  reform  of  any  kind,  they  have  to  make  a  desperate 
fight  for  it,  just  as  though  they  were  wresting  it  not  from  their  country- 
men and  brothers,  but  from  the  representatives  of  a  conquering  nation. 
Take  this  last  session  of  all — this  session  which  has  just  passed  over,  a 
session  ever  to  be  remembered.  The  Government,  headed  by  Lord  Russell 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  House  of  Commons — anxious 
to  make  one  step  forward  in  the  direction  of  popular  rights,  brought  in  a 
bill  most  honest  in  its  character,  and  most  moderate  in  its  dimensions.  It 
was  a  bill  so  moderate  in  its  dimensions,  that  some  of  us  who  think  much 
more  would  be  greater  wisdom  to  grant,  found  ourselves  in  some  difficulty 
in  tendering  to  the  Government  our  cordial  support  to  enable  them  to  carry 
that  bill.  Well,  that  bill,  which  I  hold  every  man  who  is  in  favour  of  any 
reform  at  all  had  no  kind  of  excuse  for  opposing — that  bill  was  met  by  an 
opposition,  I  will  say  at  once  as  malignant  and  as  dishonest  as  I  have 
ever  seen  given  to  any  measure  in  the  House  of  Commons.  There  was  no- 
artifice,  there  was  no  trick  that  was  too  mean  and  too  base  to  be  made  use  of 
to  retard  the  progress  of  and  ultimately  destroy  the  bill,  and  to  such  an 
extent  did  it  go  that  even  Lord  Stanley  was  induced,  I  know  not  how,  I 


know  not  by  what  evil  spiiit  of  his  part}' — he  was  iiuluctfl  to  make  a 
proposition  which  to  my  certain  knowledge  some  among  his  own  party 
described  as  utterly  disgraceful.  The  facts  and  the  arguments  on  which 
that  bill  was  supported  and  defended  were  not  met,  and  never  could  be  met. 
Another  policy  was  adopted,  and  to  get  rid  of  the  inconvenient  argument  of 
figures,  they  turned  round  and  did  not  hesitate  to  slander  a  whole  nation. 
The  name  of  a  gentleman  eminent  in  these  matters  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. If  I  mention  his  name,  or  if  I  quote  what  he  said,  understand  that 
I  make  no  charge  against  him  that  he  holds  opinions  which  I  so  much 
deplore.  Any  man  may  hold  what  opinions  he  likes,  and  the  opinions  of 
any  particular  man  in  Parliament  are  not  of  very  great  importance.  But 
these  opinions  were  important  because  they  were  addressed  to  300  mem- 
bers of  the  party  which  is  now  in  power,  and  by  that  party  they  were 
received  with  uproarious  and  universal  enthusiasm.  I  do  not  think  that 
any  meeting  of  the  working  classes  held  during  this  recess  should  pass  with- 
out some  reference  to  the  observations  of  that  gentleman.  Bear  in  mind 
that  not  only  were  they  received  with  enthusiastic  cheering  by  the  Tory 
party,  but  when  the  Queen  sent  for  Lord  Derby  and  committed  to  him  the 
charge  of  forming  a  new  Government,  he  either  directly,  or  through  his 
patron,  the  owner  of  the  borough  of  Calne,  endeavoured,  as  is  universally 
believed,  and  as  I  believe,  t»  prevail  upon  the  man  who  had  uttered  these 
sentiments  to  become  a  member  of  his  Government.  These  are  some  of  his 
sentiments: — "I  havehad  opportunities  of  knowin  g  some  of  the  constituencies 
in  this  country,  and,  I  ask  if  you  want  venality,  ignorance,  drunkenness, 
and  the  means  of  intimidation  ;  if  you  want  impulsive,  unreflecting,  violent 
people,  where  would  you  go  to  look  for  them — to  the  top  or  the  bottom  ?  It 
is  ridiculous  to  blink  the  fact  that  since  the  Reform  Act  the  great 
corruption  has  been  among  the  voters  between  the  £20  and  £10  rental — the 
A'10  lodging-house  and  beerhouse  keepers.  But  it  is  said,  '  Only  give  the  fran- 
chise to  the  artisan,  and  then  see  the  difference.'  "  He  goes  on  immediately 
after,  omitting  a  sentence  which  is  nothing  to  the  argument.  "We  know 
what  sort  of  people  live  in  these  small  houses.  We  have  long  had  experi- 
ence of  them  under  the  name  of  '  freemen, '  and  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
if  they  were  disfranchised  altogether.  They  were  dying  out  of  themselves, 
but  the  Government  proposed  to  bring  them  back  again  under  another 
name."  That  refers  of  course  to  persons  who  live  in  houses  between  £7  and 
£10  rental.  Then  he  said  if  this  bill  should  pass  what  dreadful  things  would 
happen.  "  The  first  stage  would  be  in  increase  of  corruption,  intimidation, 
and  disorder,  of  all  the  evils  that  happen  usually  in  elections.  What  would 
be  the  second  ?  The  second  will  be,  that  the  working  men  of  England, 
finding  themselves  in  a  full  majority  of  the  whole  constituency,  will  awake 
to  a  full  sense  of  their  power.  They  will  say,  we  can  do  better  for  our- 
selves ;  we  have  objects  to  carry  as  well  as  our  neighbours,  and  let  us  unite 
to  carry  those  objects  ;  we  have  machinery,  we  have  our  trades'  unions,  we 
have  our  leaders  all  ready.  We  have  the  power  of  combination,  as  we  have 
shown  over  and  over  again  ;  and  when  we  have  a  prize  to  fight  for  we  will 
bring  to  bear  with  tenfold  more  force  than  ever  before. "  Perhaps  the  hint 
that  you  have  your  trades'  unions,  and  machinery,  and  leaders — a  hint  which 


1  offered  to  you  some  years  ago — may  have  some  effect,  coming  from  suck 
lips.  But  you  see  the  whole  tenor  of  these  observations  is  this.  There  are 
men  to  whom  1  should  attribute  no  blame  for  uttering  them,  or  for  holding 
them,  for  there  are  men  so  timid  as  to  see  giants  and  ghosts  everywhere. 
The  whole  tenor  of  these  observations  is  to  show  that  the  great  body  of  the 
working  classes — because,  mind,  this  bill  only  as  explained  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, and  in  my  opinion  it  was  an  exaggerated  estimate,  proposed  to  admit 
200,000  of  them — these  observations  are  based  on  the  opinion  that  the  whole 
of  the  great  body  of  the  working  classes  are  in  that  condition  of  ignorance 
and  degradation  and  also  of  hostility  to  the  existing  institutions  of  the 
country,  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  admit  to  the  franchise  even  two  hun- 
dred thousand  out  of  the  five  millions  who  are  now  excluded.  Now,  I  said 
at  Birmingham,  and  I  say  here,  that  in  every  workshop,  in  every  room,  and 
in  every  factory,  in  every  clubhouse  of  every  trade,  there  ought  to  be  a  card 
hung  up  with  these  remarks,  these  slanders  of  the  working  men,  there 
suspended.  If  these  statements  be  true,  hang  the  card  up  there  that  you 
may  see  in  that  mirror  what  you  are,  and  reform  yourselves.  If  this  charge 
be  false,  as  J  hold  it  to  be  false,  then  read  what  it  is  that  is  said  of  you  by 
those  who  are  hostile  to  your  political  rights,  and  draw  your  ranks  closer 
together  and  make  a  more  resolute  and  determined  effort  to  change  the  state 
of  things  in  this  country.  Some  newspapers  have  said,  since  my  speech  at 
Binningham  was  delivered,  that  it  was  unfair  to  try  to  place  this  on  the 
back  of  the  Tory  party.  Why  did  they  cheer  it  ?  Why  have  their  news- 
papers said  that  here  is  a  great  man,  dropped  down  as  it  were  from  the 
clouds,  to  tell  iis  all  about  the  constitution  of  this  country  ?  Why  is  it  that 
Lord  Derby  spent  many  efforts  trying  to  pursuade  the  utterer  of  these  senti- 
ments to  become  a  member,  and  a  powerful  member  of  his  Cabinet  ?  I  say  the 
doctrines  which  Jl  r.  Lowe  uttered  in  that  speech,  I  say  they  are  in  the  main  the 
doctrines  upon  which  the  Tory  party  has  acted  for  generations  back, 
although  there  arc  not  many  men  in  the  House  probably  of  that  party  who 
would  dare  to  say  what  he  said,  and  I  suspect  there  is  hardly  one  of  them 
who  could  say  it  so  well.  I  want  to  ask  you  a  question.  I  do  not  know 
how  many  thousand  persons  there  are  here,  but  if  I  were  to  say  6,000  or  7, 000 
— and  I  do  not  know  how  many  thousands  have  been  joining  your  de- 
monstration to-day  in  Manchester;  but  I  will  put  the  question  to  them 
through  the  gentlemen  below  (the  reporters),  to  whom  we  give  so  much 
trouble,  and  to  whom  we  are  so  much  indebted.  I  put  this  question.  If 
these  arguments  of  ignorance  and  drunkenness  be  true,  what  does  it  show? 
There  is  a  paper  piiblished  in  London— the  Morning  Herald — which  the 
other  day  1  am  told  wrote  some  hints  for  me  for  my  speech  on  this  occasion. 
The  Morning  Herald,  which  is  an  organ  of  the  Tory  party,  pointed  out 
a  fact,  which  I  stated  with  great  amplitude  at  a  meeting  of  Rochdale  Sunday 
School  teachers — I  think  on  Good  Friday  last— that  a  very  large  portion  of 
the  children  of  the  working  classes  in  Manchester — a  proportion  deplorably 
large — was  growing  up  without  any  actual  provision  being  made  for  their 
education.  And  the  Morning  Herald  states  also  that  in  Manchester  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  drunkenness,  although  I  believe  all  the  figures  show  that 
there  is  less  (b  unkenness  in  Manchester,  probably,  than  in  any  other  town 


of  equal  magnitude  in  the  kingdom.  I  will  assume  the  ignorance  for  the 
moment,  and  assume  the  drunkenness,  and  assume  the  degradation  to  be 
there,  and  what  shall  I  say  of  the  Government  that  has  permitted  it  ? 
"What  is  this  Government — what  is  this  supreme  power  in  this  country?  It 
holds  all  the  land,  or  nearly  so;  it  holds  the  revenues  of  the  richest  church 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  has  both  Houses  of  Parliament  to  do  its 
bidding.  It  has  two  national  and  noble  universities;  in  fact,  it  has  every- 
thing of  power  in  this  country,  and  yet  according  to  the  showing  of  this 
writer  the  people  are  ignorant  and  drunken  and  degraded.  It  must  be  far 
worse  than  that  of  almost  any  other  country,  because  in  almost  every  other 
constitutional  country  the  franchise  is  far  more  widely  extended  than  it  is  in 
this,  and  without  the  slightest  danger  to  property  or  to  order.  "Why  is  it,  I 
ask  you,  that  Englishmen  in  England  are  not  so  well  educated  as  Englishmen 
in  New  England  ?  In  the  New  England  States  of  North  America  there  have 
been  seven  generations  of  men  who  came  originally  from  this  country,  who 
have  been  thoroughly  and  fully  instructed.  I  know  that  in  every  Free  State — 
I  mean  in  every  State  that  was  free  before  the  late  war — there  is  a  wide 
suffrage;  there  schools  are  universal,  and  all  the  people  have  the 
fullest  opportunity  of  being  thoroughly  instructed  for  the  purposes 
of  life.  In  this  country,  what  are  we  doing  ?  The  people  who  have 
this  matter  in  their  hands,  and  who  could  settle  it,  are  discussing  questions 
of  catechisms — Thirty -nine  Articles— what  they  call  "  conscience-clauses." 
They  are  all  engaged  in  worrying  some  dry  bone  of  this  kind,  whilst  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  and  especially  the  poorest  of  the  people,  are  left 
wholly  unprovided  for.  I  venture  to  say — and  I  would  stake  everything  I 
have  in  the  world  upon  it — that  if  the  platform  of  the  National  Keform 
League,  or  any  platform  which  gave  a  substantial  and  real  representation  to 
the  whole  people,  was  embodied  in  an  act  of  Parliament  there  would  not 
pass  over  three  sessions  of  Parliament  before  there  would  be  a  full  provision 
for  the  thorough  instruction  of  every  working  man's  child  in  this  kingdom. 
But  there  is  another  argument  that  was  very  often  used  in  the  House  of 
Commons;  which  is  even  more  extraordinary,  coming  from  the  quarter 
whence  we  heard  it ;  and  it  was  this — that  the  country  is  so  prosperous, 
proving  that  it  is  so  well  governed  that  in  reality  there  is  not  only  no  occa- 
sion for  anything  more,  but  nobody  has  any  right  to  ask  for  anything  more. 
It  was  one  of  the  arguments,  I  believe,  of  the  gentleman  from  whom  I  have 
quoted,  that  we  have  a  right  to  be  well  governed,  but  that  the  right  to 
govern  is  a  right  which  exists  and  rests  much  higher  up.  We  are  assembled 
here  in  a  building  which  recalls  a  good  many  memories  if  one  had  the  time 
and  I  had  the  voice  to  dwell  upon  them.  But,  may  I  ask  you  why  it  is  we 
are  prosperous  ?  You  recollect,  many  of  you  here,  twenty-five  years  ago — 
in  the  year  1841 — this  county  was  like  a  county  subjected  to  desolation  and 
to  famine;  and,  in  fact,  it  is  only  since  1846,  since  the  abolition  of  the  corn 
laws,  since  the  general  change  to  the  free  trade  policy,  that  there  has  been 
continually  growing  that  prosperity  which  is  now  brought  against  us  as  an 
argument  why  there  should  be  no  further  reform  in  Parliament.  Suppose 
we  had  the  corn  laws  now,  with  the  August  we  have  had  and  the  September 
we  are  having,  gold  would  be  going  out  of  the  country,  the  rate  of  interest 


would  be  rising,  the  wages  of  the  people  would  be  falling,  the  wages  they 
received  would  be  absorbed  in  the  purchase  of  dear  food ;  and  generally 
over  the  whole  country  there  would  come  a  state  of  things  which  would 
give  the  greatest  alarm  to  the  thoughtful  in  the  higher  class,  and  the  greatest 
suffering  to  the  multitudes  at  the  base  of  the  social  scale.  But  why  is  it — 
how  comes  it  that  we  are  not  in  that  danger  ? — that  we  are  not  filled  with 
confusion  and  dismay?  Who  was  it  that  destroyed  the  curse  of  the  corn  laws, 
and  who  was  it  that  fought  desperately  to  maintain  that  curse  ?  Surely 
you  know  who  were  accustomed  to  assemble  in  the  Free-trade  Hall,  who 
were  largely  instrumental  in  destroying  it,  and  you  know  that  no  man  was 
more  forward  in  its  support  than  the  man  who  is  now  the  Prime  Minister 
of  England.  If  this  is  so — if  we,  the  party  which  we  represent  on  this 
platform  to-night — if  we  did  much  to  promote  this  prosperity,  are  we  not 
fairly  entitled  to  offer  ourselves  as  advisers  on  the  question  of  the  franchise? 
What  is  called  statesmanship  is  not  like  any  other  profession.  In  other 
professions  failure  is  acknowledged,  and  it  shuts  a  man  out  from  distinction 
and  supremacy  ;  but  Lord  Derby  at  this  moment  is  Prime  Minister  of 
England  whose  failures  are  in  the  annals  of  England  for  thirty  years 
past.  In  1834  Lord  Derby  left  Earl  Grey's  Government  because  he 
would  not  permit  even  inquiry  into  the  excessive  revenues  of  the 
Irish  Church.  But  the  Irish  Church  is  doomed  to  destruction.  In 
1846  he  left  Sir  Eobert  Peel  and  became  the  leader  of  the  Tory 
Protectionists,  becaiise  he  would  not  consent  to  the  abolition  of  the  corn 
laws ;  and  since  then  he  has  been  foremost  in  opposition  to  all  good  things 
in  Parliament.  Lord  Derby  is  not  the  leader  of  his  party  in  a  high  sense. 
He  is  not  its  educator  ;  he  is  not  its  guide.  He  is  its  leader  in  the  foolish 
contests  in  which  its  ignorance  and  selfishness  involves  itself  with  the  people. 
Only  three  or  four  days  ago  I  opened  a  book  which  professed  to  be  a  history 
of  the  governing  families  of  England.  It  is  composed  of  articles,  many  of 
which  appeared  in  the  Spectator  newspaper.  There  is  one  on  the  Stanleys 
of  Knowsley,  and  they  are  certainly  a  governing  family,  seeing  that  Lord 
Derby  and  Lord  Stanley  are  both  of  them  in  the  present  Government.  In 
opening  the  book,  I  find  that  in  the  course  taken  during  the  agitation  of 
the  Reform  Act,  Lord  Stanley,  the  present  Earl  of  Derby,  is  stated  to  have 
leaped  on  the  table  where  there  was  a  number  of  reformers  assembled,  and 
to  have  urged  upon  them  the  necessity  of  refusing  the  payment  of  taxes  till 
the  Reform  Bill  was  passed.  I  was  not  there  to  see  it,  but  I  have  heard  the 
story  before  several  times ;  I  see  it  recorded  in  this  volume,  and  I  take  it 
therefore  to  be  correct.  But  Lord  Derby  in  1852  came  forward  "to  stem 
the  tide  of  democracy."  In  1859  Lord  Derby  was  the  author,  or  head  of  a 
Government  that  proposed  a  reform  bill  of  a  most  fraudulent  character  ;  and 
in  1866  he  is  the  head  of  a  party  which  has  destroyed  an  honest  franchise 
bill,  and  has  overthrown  an  honest  and  patriotic  Government.  But  the 
newspapers  which  write  in  his  support  tell  us  that  after  all  this  his  Govern- 
ment is  not  in  the  least  disabled  or  precluded  from  dealing  with  the  reform 
question.  I  hope  no  reformer  will  dream  of  such  a  thing.  If  you  like  you 
may  trust  your  life  to  your  most  bitter  foe  ;  but  I  will  not  do  it  if  I  know 
it.  We  had  free  trade  from  free  traders ;  for  when  Sir  Robert  Peel  repealed 


1C 

the  Corn-law  he  was  as  sincere  a  free  trader  as  if  he  had  spoken  free 
trade  for  the  last  five  years  from  this  platform  on  which  I  stand.  But 
Lord  Derby  is  not  a  reformer,  nor  will  he  introduce  a  Reform  Bill  in 
the  character  of  a  reformer.  If  he  introduces  one,  it  will  be  as  before — it 
will  be  some  juggle,  some  dishonest  trick,  something  base,  like  the  means 
by  which  they  overthrew  the  bill  of  Earl  Russell.  If  that  bill  had  passed, 
moderate  as  it  was,  I  undertake  to  say  it  would  have  been  received  in  every 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom  with  the  liveliest  satisfaction.  It  would  have 
given  to  working  men,  or  to  a  number  of  them,  a  partnership  in  the  State, 
and  I  believe  that  the  nation  would  have  been  happier  and  stronger  by  the 
passing  of  that  bill.  But  now  discontent  is  growing — growing  everywhere, 
and  it  will  continue  to  grow  until  the  discontent  becomes  a  great  peril  in 
the  country,  unless  a  satisfactory  measure  is  introduced  and  passed  through 
Parliament.  I  charge  Lord  Derby  and  his  friends  with  this.  I  say  that 
they  have  brought  class  into  conflict  with  class.  I  say  that  they  have  done 
much  to  separate  Parliament  from  the  nation — that  they  have  made  the 
House  of  Commons  the  reviler  and  not  the  protector  of  the  people — and 
further,  that  they  have  frustrated  the  just  and  beneficent  intentions  of  the 
Crown.  And,  in  conclusion,  I  venture  upon  something — which  some  may 
deem  a  foretelling  of  what  is  to  come.  I  say  that  these  men  who  are  now 
in  office  cannot  govern  Britain.  The  middle  class  and  the  working  class 
will  alike  condemn  them.  They  cannot  govern  Ireland.  In  that  unhappy 
country  their  policy  has  begotten  a  condition  of  chronic  insurrection  which 
they  can  never  cure.  They  will  be  excluded  from  power,  and  their  policy 
will  be  rejected  by  the  people  ;  for  it  is  on  broad,  and  just,  and  liberal 
principles  alone  that  England  can  maintain  her  honourable  biit  not  now 
unchallenged  place  amongst  the  great  nations  of  the  world. 


ON  the  evening  of  the  following  day,  at  a  Banquet  held  at  the 
Albion  Hotel,  in  the  same  city,  Mr.  Bright,  in  responding  to  the 
toast,  "  The  health  of  John  Bright,"  said: — 

1  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  opinion  you  have  expressed 
of  me  in  such  emphatic  language;  at  the  same  time  I  am  pained  to  think 
how  much  you  attribute  to  me,  and  how  much  apparently  you  expect 
from  me,  for  I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  after  all  one  man  can  do  very 
little,  and  in  a  question  like  this  we  have  now  before,  us  unassisted,  unbacked 
by  the  multitudes  to  whom  Mr.  Edge  has  referred,  it  is  almost  nothing  we 
can  do.  However,  I  hope  that  amongst  us  we  have  been  doing 
a  little  during  the  last  two  days.  We  know  at  the  concluding 
meeting  of  this  short  Manchester  campaign  that  these  meetings  have  been 
very  different,  and  each  has  been  remarkable  in  its  way.  The  first  was 


17 

enormous  beyond  counting,  and  held  amid  most  unfavourable  circumstances. 
Some  men  coming  from  Rochdale  in  a  train  yesterday  morning,  in  the 
same  carriage  with  a  relative  of  mine,  said  they  were  rather  glad  than 
otherwise  that  it  did  rain,  for  if  it  had  not  rained  people  would  have 
said  that  they  came  out  to  enjoy  the  sunshine;  but  they  would  show 
them  that  they  cared  enough  for  the  question  of  reform  to  come  during  a 
continuous  shower  of  rain.  Well,  I  thought  that  was  rather  a  plucky 
idea  that  my  townsman  had  laid  hold  of,  and  I  suspect  that  it  was  an  idea 
entertained  by  many  present  besides  Jhimself.  The  second  meeting  was  also 
remarkable  for  its  numbers.  It  was  held  in  the  finest  hall  in  this  kingdom, 
and  I  must  say  it  was,  as  far  as  temperature  was  concerned,  the  most 
oppressive  meeting  which  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  attend,  for  the  fact  is 
when  we  went  into  the  room  the  temperature,  the  state  of  the  atmosphere 
was  just  such  as  we  expected  it  would  be  when  we  should  leave  the  room  ; 
for  the  hall  had  been  crammed  full  for  two  hours  before  we  entered  it;  and, 
therefore,  we  went  into  a  room  where  the  atmosphere  was  already 
much  exhausted,  and  we  suffered,  many  of  us,  in  consequence.  To-night 
we  have  a  very  different  meeting.  It  is  not  numerous  beyond  counting; 
but  it  is  very  agreeable,  and  the  table  has  been  loaded  with  every- 
thing that  is  wholesome  and  everything  that  is  elegant  for  our  gratifi- 
cation; and,  after  the  three  meetings,  may  we  not  say  that,  differing 
as  they  have  differed,  still  they  all  had  one  object,  and  have  been 
directed  to  one  great  purpose.  There  are  different  platforms  or  opinions 
here,  and  there  is  very  great  difference  in  the  religious  world,  but  still  the 
religious  world  proposes  to  itself  to  march  on  to  one  common  end.  There 
are  differences  in  this  school  of  politics — the  reform  school — but  we  may 
still  march  on  to  one  common  end,  which  is  a  real  representati  >:i  of  the 
people  and  the  establishment  of  popular  power  as  supreme  in  this  country. 
Now,  the  Reform  League,  under  whose  auspices  this  movement  hare  was 
originated — it  has  been  carried  on  jointly  by  that  body  and  by  th.3  Xational 
Reform  Union,  and  the  difference  between  them  is  not  considerable — the 
Reform  League  hoists  a  flag  which  bears  upon  it  these  words,  "Manhood 
suffrage  and  the  ballot."  Now,  whatever  opinion  any  person  may  have 
with  regard  to  the  wisdom  of  immediately,  if  it  was  in  our  power,  estab- 
lishing these  principles,  or  that  policy,  in  an  act  of  Parliament,  this,  I  think 
no  man  can  doubt,  that  argument  on  principle,  almost — if  not  altogether — 
unassailable,  can  be  brought  in  favour  of  that  flag.  I  speak  now  on  the 
question  of  giving  a  vote  to  every  man.  I  believe  that  there  is  no  argument 
worth  listening  to  for  a  moment  that  can  be  brought  against  the  adoption 
of  the  ballot.  Although  we  may  differ,  I  believe  the  difference  arises  from 
this,  that  many  believe  that  something  less  than  the  proposition  of  the 
League  is  sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  a  reform  that  would  make  the  House 
of  Commons  a  true  representation  of  the  people;  and  that  proposing  some- 
thing short  of  that  which  the  League  proposes,  it  is  believed  that  the  large 
portion  of  that  middle  class,  to  which  Mr.  Rumney  referred,  would  in  some 
degree  be  propitiated,  and  would  be  induced  to  lend  their  support  to  the  less 
extensive  proposition.  I  think  that  is  quite  true.  I  believe  that  the  middle 
classes  of  this  country,  speaking  of  them  in  any  way  that  you  like,  by  any 


18 

kind  of  measurement  for  the  ascertainment  of  their  opinions,  my 
own  honest  opinion  is  that  they  would  consider  at  this  moment  that  a  bill 
that  advanced  as  far  as  household  suffrage  was  in  itself,  considering  the 
opinions  of  the  country,  a  wiser  measure  f o  r  all  purposes  than  that  of  man- 
hood suffrage,  and  they  believe  it  would  give  to  the  country  a  really  honest 
Parliament.  A  great  deal  may  be  said  for  that.  I  think  myself  that  opinion 
is  on  the  whole  correct.  I  do  not  agree  at  all  with  Mr.  Rumney  in  the  dreary 
picture  which  he  gave  of  the  opinion  of  the  middle  classes.  Why,  what  is 
the  result  of  the  present  system  ?  I  showed  last  night  how  entirely — almost 
entirely — the  people  took  no  part  in  county  elections;  that  in  boroughs 
the  majority  of  members  come  from  boroughs  under  20,000  inhabitants;  and 
yet  notwithstanding  that,  you  can  elect  a  Parliament  from  which  the  people 
are  so  much  excluded,  and  in  which  the  aristocracy  and  great  landowners 
have  enormous  power,  you  can  still  elect  a  Parliament  which  is  within  a 
hair's  breadth  of  passing  a  measure  which  is,  after  all,  a  considerable  'exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage;  and  I  believe  the  same  Parliament,  if  such  a  measure 
had  been  proposed  by  the  Government,  would  have  been  almost  as  near 
passing  a  proposition  for  household  suffrage.  Therefore,  I  do  not  agree  with 
Mr.  Rumney.  I  think  his  description  of  the  opinions  of  the  middle  classes 
is  not  accurate.  If  he  will  go  into  any  borough  in  the  kingdom,  any  free 
borough  of  any  fair  size,  from  which  you  may  draw  a  fair  argument,  he  will 
find  that  no  Liberal  member  can  be  returned  unless  he  pledges  himself  to  a 
very  considerable  extension  of  the  franchise;  and  that  cannot  be  so,  if  all 
the  middle  class — 1  speak  not  of  the  Tories — if  a  great  majority  of  the 
middle  class  in  each  borough  were  not  in  favour  of  an  extension  of  the 
franchise.  Well,  now,  my  view  of  the  whole  question,  and  of  the  difference 
among  reformers,  is  this:  that  when  one  sees  a  movement — a  real  movement, 
something  grand  in  its  proportions,  powerful  for  the  gaining  of  results— the 
plan  of  a  sensible  man  who  wants  to  do  something,  and  does  not  want  to 
split  hairs,  is  to  go  with  that  movement  and  to  make  the  best  of  it,  and  to 
get  all  that  can  be  got  out  of  it.  "Why  should  we  who  are  called  the  middle 
classes  see  this  vast  volume  of  millions  of  voices  gathering  and  rolling  on  ? 
and  shall  we  take  no  part  in  it,  nor  bid  it  welcome,  nor  bid  it  success,  nor 
wish  to  see  the  great  results  which  in  all  probability  will  be  born  of  it  ?  I 
•was  very  sorry  to  find  from  the  papers  the  other  day  that  some  friends  of 
mine — I  refer  merely  to  one  whose  letter  I  read,  in  the  West  Riding  of 
Yorkshire — took  different  views  of  this  matter.  I  read  a  very  kind  an  d 
I  am  sure,  a  conscientiously-dictated  letter  from  Mr.  Baines,  the  member 
for  Leeds,  to  the  committee  who  are  organising  the  great  meeting  that  is  to 
take  place  in  the  West  Riding,  declining  the  invitation  to  attend  the 
meeting,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not  in  favour  of  manhood  suf- 
frage. Well,  I  don't  blame  him  in  the  least  for  not  being  in  favour 
of  manhood  suffrage.  I  am  not  in  favour  of  manhood  suffrage,  as  against 
household  suffrage;  and  the  people  of  Leeds  or  the  West  Riding  don't  want 
to  commit  Mr.  Baines  to  manhood  suffrage  by  his  attending  the  meeting.  I 
am  not  committed  to  it  any  the  more  because  I  have  attended  these  meet- 
ings. No  doubt  it  has  arisen  from  Mr.  Baines  being  anxious  not  to  be 
misrepresented,  and  being  so  scrupulous  that  he  should  not  appear  to  hold 


19 

out  expectations  to  the  'persons  attending  that  meeting  which  lie  was  not 
prepared  afterwards  to  fulfil.     But  so  far  as  I  have  seen  of  the  working  men 
in  connection  with  this  movement  during  the  last  few  months,  I  find  them 
tolerant  in  a  high  degree,  and  considerate  and  respectful  of  and  to  all  those 
who  may  honestly  differ  with  them  in  any  degree,    and  are  still  honestly 
friendly  to  the  admission  of  any  considerable  number  of  them  to  the  fran- 
chise.    Well,  they  would  admit  all  to  work,  and  we  should  all  work  on  with 
perfect  unanimity  up  to  the  point  where  the  work  parts  from  us  and  falls 
into  other  hands.      Make  this  movement  as  large  as  you  like;  carry  it  on 
from  the  West  Riding  to  the  Northumberland  and  the  Durham  districts';  from 
there  to  Glasgow;  and  when  it  has  exhibited  itself  in  Glasgow,  perhaps 
about  the  beginning  of  the  year,  it  may  reappear  in  greater  proportions  than 
ever  in  London.      Let  it  take  any  proportions  you  please.      Finally  it  will 
become  a  question  for  the  deliberations  of  twelve  or  fifteen  men  who  will  be 
the  Queen's  immediate  advisers,  what  shall  be  the  precise  measures  to  be  pre- 
sented to  Parliament,  and  when  they  discuss  this  measure  they  must  try  to 
be  unanimous,  which  is  not  always  easy.      They  must  try  to  ascertain  what 
it  is  that  Parliament  will  fairly  consider  and  will  be  likely  to  pass.      More 
than  that.     They  will  have  to  consider,  not  merely  the  voice  of  those  wl:  o 
have  attended  these  great  meetings,  but  that  portion  of  the  people  who  have 
been  silent  on  this  question.      They  will  have  to  consider  that  which  is 
called  the  Conservative  opinion  of  the  country — the  "timid  opinion."    They 
will  have  to  consider  this, — I  am  not  speaking  of  those  who  are  passionately 
against  all  reform,  and  who  hate  the  very  name  of  popular  power,  but  1 
speak  of  the  section  much  larger,  that  which  lies  between  us  and  them,  who 
are  quiet     stay-at-home  people,  who  probably  read  their  paper  and  have  as 
good  a  feeling  towards  working  men  as  any  of  us  have,  but  who  have  not 
sufficiently  considered  this  question,  and  who  are  not  courageous  enough  in 
spirit  to  join  in  a  great  movement  like  this.      But  when  the  Ministry  and 
the  Cabinet  come  to  discuss  the  measure  to  be  submitted  to  Parliament,  they 
must  seriously  take  into  consideration  all  this  amount  of  opinion — violent 
some  of  it;  less  outspoken,  some  of  it;  the  quiet  opinion  of  those  timid  mul- 
titudes who  are  at  home— and  out  of  all  this  they  must  determine  what  is 
the  measure  which,  in  the  then  condition  of  public  opinion,   it  is  wise  to 
submit  to  Parliament,  because  a  measure  based  upon  such  a  view  can  alone 
have  a  chance  of  passing,    and  when   it  is  passed  can  alone  be  for  any 
considerable  period  a  satisfactory    settlement    of    a    great    question    like 
this.      I  say  with  great  deference  to  my  friend  Mr.  Baines,   for  whom  I 
have  a  most  unfeigned  respect,  and  whose  service  in  connection  with  this 
question  can  hardly  be  estimated,  I  am  very  sorry  that  he  and  others  have 
not  found   it  consistent  with   their   duty  to  attend   these  meetings,  and 
to  give  to  them  all  the  support  in  their  power  to  make  of  the  whole  reform 
feeling  and  opinion  of  the  country  one  grand  force,  because,  depend  upon 
it,  the  resistance  is  not  easily  to  be  surmounted,  and  we  shall  not  in  all 
probability  cut  off  the  enemy  in  detachments.     They  appear  always  in  a 
powerful  and  united  .body,  and  unless  we  meet  him  in  the  same  form  and 
shape,  I  know  not  how  it  is  possible  that  we  can  eventually  triumph.      I 
confess  I  am  here  with  views  which  I  have  expressed  for  many  years  on  the 


20 

question  of  parliamentary  reform.  1  should  not  split  hairs  with  any  measure 
which  may  be  introduced  into  Parliament.  I  am  not  likely  to  complain 
that  it  goes  too  far.  I  should  support  it  if  it  were  an  honest  and  true 
measure,  although  I  might  wish  it  went  further,  and  when  I  see  a  Reform 
League  or  a  National  Reform  Union,  or  any  other  association  of  the  people, 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  advancing  this  great  question,  I  don't  stop  to 
inquire  whether  they  may  go  a  few  leagues  short  of  my  own  terminus,  or  a 
few  leagues  beyond  it.  But  as  far  as  we  can  go  together  I  go  with  them  ; 
my  views  shall  be  added  to  theirs,  and  I  trust  after  a  time  that  the  whole 
voice  of  the  reform  party  in  the  country  may  be  so  loud  that  these  300 
gentlemen  of  whom  I  have  a  very  distinct  and  not  always  very  pleasant 
recollection,  that  they  may  at  last  admit  that  the  people  of  this  country  are 
in  favour  of  reform ;  and  that  when  I  have  spoken  in  favour  of  it  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  I  have  been  justified  in  saying  that  I  expressed  the 
opinions  of  millions  outside  that  House.  I  believe  the  time  is  coming  when 
this  question  must  be  laid  hold  of  by  the  Government,  and  that  Parliament 
will  feel  it  dare  not  treat  it  in  the  future  as  it  has  treated  it  in  the  past. 
These  great  meetings,  and  I  think  Mr.  Mill  very  wisely  and  justly  said  so, 
are  not  meetings  for  discussion  so  much  as  they  are  meetings  for  demonstra- 
tion of  opinion,  and  if  you  like,  I  will  add,  for  an  exhibition  of  force — an 
exhibition  of  force  of  opinion  now,  and  if  that  force  of  opinion  be  despised 
and  disregarded,  it  may  become  an  exhibition  of  another  kind  of  force. 
Now,  I  have  been  insulted  in  past  time,  not  a  little  in  this  very  city,  because 
I  was  said  to  be  in  favour  of  peace  at  any  price.  I  always  said  I  was  not  in 
favour  of  war  at  any  cost,  as  I  think  ten  years  ago  my  opponents  were.  I 
l>elieve  that  however  much  any  of  us  may  have  thought  that  political  questions 
in  our  country  should  never  again  be  settled  by  force,  yet  there  is  something 
in  the  constitution  of  our  nature  that  when  evils  are  allowed  to  run  on  beyond 
a  certain  period  unredressed,  the  most  peace-loving  of  men  are  unable  to  keep 
the  peace.  And  bear  this  in  mind,  however  much  we  may  wish  political  ques- 
tions to  be  settled  by  moral  means,  yet  it  is  not  more  immoral  for  the  people 
to  use  force  in  the  last  resort,  for  the  obtaining  and  securing  of  freedom, 
than  it  is  for  the  Government  to  use  force  to  suppress  and  deny  that  freedom. 
I  must  ask  pardon  of  my  friends  for  touching  on  what  may  be  termed 
"abstract  principles."  We  are  doubtless  a  very  long  way — longer  than  can 
be  measured,  I  believe  and  hope,  from  the  time  when  it  will  be  necessary 
for  us  seriously,  or  for  the  people  of  this  country,  to  consider  questions  of 
that  nature.  I  think  that  question  was  settled  in  1832,  whether  the  changes 
which  may  be  necessary  in  the  government  of  the  United  Kingdom  can  be 
accomplished  by  peaceful  means,  or  whether  force  will  be  necessary  for  their 
completion.  At  that  time  force  was  very  nearly  necessary,  and  the  opponents 
of  the  people  saw  that  and  succumbed.  Liberty  from  that  time  has  grown  so 
auuch  that  vast  meetings,  200,000  in  number,  are  gathered  together  under  the 
countenance  of  the  mayor  of  a  great  borough,  and  the  vast  multitude  was  mar- 
shalled at  the  place  of  meeting  under  the  care  of  the  superintendent  of  police. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Mayor  of  Manchester,  although  he  did  not  preside  at 
the  Knot  Mill  meeting,  still  sympathised  with  its  object.  We  have  passed 
tkc  time,  and  may^it  never  return,  when  the  people  of  England  need  to  speak 


21 

of  force  in  connection  with  political  reform.  We  have  greater  means  of 
instruction  than  we  had  before.  Every  man  has  his  newspaper,  with  the 
history  of  the  proceedings  of  the  world,  on  his  table  every  day,  and  we  have 
freedom  to  assemble  and  discuss  these  questions  at  our  will.  The  point  at 
which  we  have  arrived  of  political  liberty  and  instruction  and  of  civilisation, 
permits  us  to  believe  that  there  is  nothing  we  can  fairly  claim — nothing  that 
could  do  us  good  that  cannot  be  obtained  by  that  grand  and  peaceful  move- 
ment of  which  the  meetings  of  the  last  few  days  have  formed  so  eminent 
and  useful  a  part.  1  am  glad  to  see  Mr.  Scales  here  to-day — and  the  other 
gentlemen  connected  with  the  Reform  League.  I  hope  that  wheresoever 
they  happen  to  go  they  will  be  received  with  the  cordiality  and  unanimity 
they  have  met  in  Manchester  ;  and  I  hope  that  when  they  have  gone  their 
round  they  will  have  shown  to  the  powers  that  be — to  the  Government  that 
is,  and  to  the  Government  that  shortly,  I  hope,  is  to  be — that  the  question 
of  reform  has  taken  deep  root  in  the  minds  of  the  whole  nation  ;  and  that 
Parliament  may  as  well  shut  its  doors  against  every  other  kind  of  legislation 
whatsoever  until  it  consents  to  pass  a  bill  that  shall  satisfy  the  just ,  i  I 
anxious  expectations  of  the  people. 


SPEECH     AT      LEEDS. 


THE  8th  of  October  being  the  day  fixed  upon  for  the  West  Biding 
of  Yorkshire  Reform  Demonstration,  Mr.  Bright  in  the  evening, 
by  invitation,  delivered  the  following  speech  in  the  Leeds  Town 
Hall.  On  rising  he  was  received  with  great  enthusiasm,  the 
meeting  rose  en  masse,  and  cheered  vigorously  for  nearly  five 
minutes.  When  silence  was  at  length  restored,  the  hon.  gentleman 
said : — 

Mr.  Chairmam  and  gentlemen, — If  I  accept  the  address  which  has  just 
been  passed  by  this  meeting,  and  handed  to  be  by  your  chairman,  be 
assured  that  I  do  it  full  of  feeling— feeling  in  the  first  place  of  thankfulness 
to  you  for  your  kindness,  and,  in  the  second  place,  in  fear  lest  in  accepting 
it  I  should  promise  to  do  that  which  I  am  wholly  unable  to  perform. 
Perhaps  some  of  you  in  your  vast  meeting  to-day  have  not  sufficiently 
measured  the  forces  which  are  opposed  to  you  in  the  carrying  of  any  great 
measure  of  reform.  I  must  ask  you  not  to  imagine  for  a  moment  that  it  ca 
be  effected,  as  it  were,  by  one  stroke  of  some  victorious  arm,  but  that  it 
must  be  done,  and  can  enly  be  done,  by  the  combined  and  resolute  efforts  of 


22 

millions  of  people.  Mr.  Kell,  in  the  observations  he  has  addressed  to  you, 
referred  to  the  opinions  of  a  dear  and  lamented  friend  of  mine.  I  recollect 
one  thing  which  he  said,  and  which  he  said  often  during  the  course  of  our 
great  agitation.  It  was  this,— That  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  freely 
pronouncing  its  opinion  influenced  to  a  large  extent  the  opinion  of  England, 
and  on  some  great  occasions  had  finally  determined  the  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment. To-day,  the  West  Hiding,  in  a  multitudinous  meeting,  has  spoken 
with  a  voice  loud  enough  to  be  heard  all  through  the  nation,  and  if  1  am  not 
misinformed  that  vast  meeting  of  which  you  have  formed  a  part  decided  by 
tmanimous  consent  that  the  representation  of  the  people  in  the  English 
House  of  Commons  was  bad  and  unsatisfactory  to  the  last  degree.  You 
decided  that  it  was  bad  not  only  for  what  it  excluded,  but  also  for  what  it 
included;  that,  whilst  it  excluded  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation,  it  included 
every  form  of  corruption  and  evil  of  which  a  representative  system  is 
capable;  and  you  came  to  resolutions  which  mean  this,  that  you  will  change 
this  system  if  it  lies  in  your  power,  and  that  you  and  the  unenfranchised 
millions  will  stand  that  exclusion  no  longer.  I  suppose  that,  after 
this  meeting  and  the  great  events  of  this  day,  we  shall  have 
no  end  of  criticism  upon  our  conduct  and  our  speeches.  I  find 
that  some  writers,  criticising  the  observations  I  made  a  fortnight 
ago  in  Manchester,  complain  that  I  said  very  much  the  same 
thing  that  I  had  said  at  Birmingham.  I  believe  that  a  charge 
of  this  nature  was  brought,  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  against 
one  of  the  wisest  of  the  ancients.  They  said  that  he  was  always  saying 
the  same  thing  about  the  same  thing — and  he  asked  them  in  return  whether 
they  expected  him  to  say  a  different  thing  about  the  same  thing.  I  have 
another  answer  to  make  to  these  critics,  and  it  is  this:  When  they  have 
answered  what  I  have  already  said  about  this  thing,  then  I  will  try  to  tell 
them  something  new.  Now,  that  case  which  we  submit  to  the  thinking 
portion  of  our  countrymen,  is  a  very  simple  one.  We  say  that  we  are  the 
citizens  of  a  country  that  has  had  representative  institutions  for  many  cen- 
turies. There  is  no  time  to  which  history  goes  back  when  there  was  not  a 
representative  assembly  of  some  kind  within  the  kingdom  of  England. 
We  say  further,  that  the  House  of  Commons  is  the  only  real  basis,  and  the 
only  true  security  for  liberty  to  the  people  of  these  realms.  We  know — 
everybody  knows — that  the  Crown  in  our  day  cannot  give  freedom  to  the 
people,  neither  can  it  materially  impair  our  freedom.  We  know  further  that 
tlie  House  of  Lords,  from  its  very  constitution,  from  the  nature  of  its  being, 
cannot  be  relied  upon  as  a  safeguard  for  the  freedom  of  Englishmen.  We 
know  that  representation,  and  a  just  and  a  fair  representation,  is 
that  which  alone  makes  a  free  country.  Some  of  our  colonies,  now 
the  United  States  of  America,  a  hundred  years  ago  knew  that 
they  could  not  be  represented  in  the  English  Parliament.  They 
would  not  stand  taxation  from  a  Parliament  in  which  they  were  not  repre- 
sented. They  threw  off,  therefore,  the  supremacy  of  the  English  Crown, 
and  declared  themselves  a  free  and  independent  state,  and  at  this  moment 
there  is  not  an  English  colony,  from  Canada  to  New  Zealand,  that  would  not 
also  throw  off  the  supremacy  of  England  if  the  Parliament  or  Crown  of 


England  denied  to  it  or  its  representatives  a  responsible  government.  In 
fact  there  is  nothing  whatever  that  distinguishes  us  from  any  despotic  country 
in  the  world,  in  the  matter  of  political  freedom,  except  the  possession  of  a 
representative  assembly.  We  have  been  taught — the  people  of  this  country 
have  been  taught — in  my  opinion  foolishly  and  even  wickedly,  to  hate  and 
despise  Russia,  Austria,  and  the  Kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  or  Naples  as 
it  lately  existed,  and  mainly  because  those  countries  were  despotic  coun- 
tries in  which  the  people  had  no  influence  in  their  government.  Well,  then, 
we  come  to  this  conclusion,  that  the  Parliament  of  England,  and  mainly  the 
House  of  Commons,  is  the  foundation  of  law  and  order,  and  that,  unless 
the  people  are  heard  in  that  House,  the  people  are  not  the  source  of  power, 
and  they  themselves  are  but  little  removed  from  a  despotism,  not  of  the 
Crown,  but  of  a  privileged  and  limited  class.  I  believe  that  the  House  of 
Commons  has  no  pretence  whatever  for  its  existence  except  that  it  speaks 
for  the  nation,  of  which  it  is  a  part.  It  is  not  established  to  speak  for  the 
Crown  and  the  dynasty;  it  was  not  established,  and  ought  not  to  exist,  to 
speak  merely  for  nobles  and  great  landowners.  It  has  not  the  pretence  to  be  a 
popular  assembly  if  it  speaks  merely  for  the  boroughmongers,  and  I  say 
that  its  character  is  degraded  when  on  its  benches  can  be  seen  by  scores 
Mr.  Moneyf Bags,  M.  P. ,  who  has  walked  through  corruption  into  his  seat  for 
Lancaster,  for  Totnes,  for  Yarmouth,  or  for  a  score,  or  it  may  be  for  two  or 
three  scores  of  other  boroughs  which  are  very  much  in  the  same  predica- 
ment. Whilst  speaking  for  these, — for  the  Crown,  for  the  nobles,  for  the  great 
landowners,  for  the  boroughmongers,  for  the  men  who  have  purchased  their 
seats  in  Parliament,  the  House  of  Commons  is  no  security  for  the  freedom 
of  the  people,  and  if  it  speaks  for  only  one  out  of  six  or  seven  of  the  people, 
it  is  no  fair  representation  of  the  nation.  If  it  exists  at  all,  if  it  is  to  be  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  English  constitution,  it  ought  so  far 
to  represent  all  classes  of  the  people  that  every  man,  whether  he  has  a  vote 
or  not  himself,  can  feel  that  he  has  an  interest  in  the  House,  and  that  it 
watches  fairly  over  his  rights  and  his  interests.  Let  us  take  a  case,  and  if 
we  had  a  meeting  every  week  during  the  year,  we  should  have  in  some  way 
or  other  fresh  cases  to  dissect.  There  has  been  during  last  week  an  election 
in  a  small  town  in  Wales,  the  town  of  Brecon.  What  happened  ?  There 
were  two  candidates.  The  carcase  was  a  very  small  one,  but  there  were 
candidates  ready.  One  was  a  gentleman  of  whom  I  can  say  nothing  but 
wliat  is  in  his  praise,  for  I  happen  to  know  that  he  resigned  or  quitted  the 
representation  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  rotten  borough  of  Woodstock 
because  he  would  not  subject  his  own  honest  liberal  convictions  to  the  views 
of  his  Tory  brother,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough.  Well,  Lord  Alfred  Churchill 
was  one  candidate.  I  forget  the  name  of  the  other.  (A  Voice  :  "Howel 
Gwyn.")  That  sounds  very  Welsh,  and  is  probably  correct.  There  was  a 
furious  contest,  and  great  excitement.  Public  meetings  were  held  and 
speeches  made,  and  a  canvass  of  the  most  pertinacious  character.  I  am  told 
that  the  agents  of  great  and  powerful  houses  were  begging,  and  coax- 
ing, and  compelling,  that  they  might  get  votes,  and  the  end  was  the  Tory 
candidate  polled  128,  and  the  Liberal  candidate  102  votes.  So  that  it  took 
just  230  votes  to  return  this  last  made  member  to  the  House  of  Commons.  Be- 


24 

fore  the  Reform  Bill  the  borough  of  Brecon  was  a  borough  returning,  I  believe, 
two  members  to  Parliament,  and  the  electors  consisted  of  ten  burgesses.  I 
believe  they  did  not  make  an  even  dozen,  although  they  might  be  11,  and 
the  Reform  Bill  extended  the  franchise  in  Brecon,  and  added  something 
more  than  200  electors,  so  that  230  have  just  voted.  I  ask  you  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible there  should  be  any  fair  representation  in  a  borough  like  this.  I  am  told, 
from  private  sources,  and  I  see  it  stated  in  the  newspapers,  that  at  least 
two  noble  families  have  been  very  active  through  their  agents — noble 
families  that  I  am  told  came  in  with  the  Conqueror,  and  as  far  as  I  know  it 
may  be  the  only  thing  they  ever  did.  They  are  noble ;  but,  j  udging  at  least  from 
any  observation  that  I  have  been  able  to  make,  they  are  obscure  and  tin- 
known  to  an  eminent  degree.  But  how  can  there  possibly  be  any  freedom 
of  election  in  a  borough  which  can  only  raise  230  voters  ?  But  this  is  not 
the  only  borough  of  that  kind.  Let  us  give,  if  only  for  a  moment,  our 
attention  to  one  or  two  facts.  In  England  and  Ireland  there  are  16  boroughs, 
and  the  population  of  each  of  them  is  under  5,000,  biit  they  return  22 
members  to  Parliament.  In  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  there  are  no  less 
than  72  boroughs,  whose  population  varies  from  5,000,  but  is  under  10,000 
persons,  and  they  return  127  members  to  the  House  of  Commons.  You  do 
not  know  much  about  little  boroughs;  but  there  are  small  boroughs  in  York- 
shire, as  well  as  in  Wales  and  the  south,  in  which  a  little  compulsion  or 
corruption,  or  a  very  acute  attorney,  or  that  sort  of  combination  which 
prevails  amongst  a  few  publicans,  which  may  be  accounted  for  if  it  cannot 
be  justified  by  the  exceptional  position  in  which  they  are  placed,  and  that 
exceptional  legislation  to  which  they  are  subjected — in  these  small  boroughs 
any  of  these  things  can  make  the  difference  whether  one  man  or  the  other 
is  returned  to  Parliament.  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  representation  in 
these  small  boroughs.  In  them  the  wishes  of  the  people  are  nothing  ;  the 
opinion  of  the  nation  nothing  ;  the  representation  is  in  the  hands  of  200  or 
300  electors,  manipulated,  coaxed,  compelled,  corrupted,  and  bribed.  Take 
two  cases  which  have  been  prominent  during  the  past  session,  and  allow  me 
to  touch  for  a  moment  on  the  character  of  those  unjust  aspersions  which 
have  been  thrown  out  on  your  character  by  a  gentleman  of  great  ability, 
capable  of  doing  very  great  things,  but  somehow  or  other,  I  know  not  by  what 
means,  he  is  always  prevented  from  doing  them.  He  sits  nominally  for  Calne 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  that  borough  there  are  173  electors,  but  the 
Marquis  of  Lansdowne  is  the  all-prevailing  influence  in  it,  and  there  is  no 
practical  or  real  representation  left  to  the  173  nominal  electors.  Well,  but 
this  gentleman  comes  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  you  know  what  he 
said.  I  received  to-day  a  letter  from  the  town  of  Warwick,  and  I  am  glad 
to  see  it  has  become  a  little  more  lively  than  it  was  when  1  knew  it  on 
questions  of  politics.  I  have  received  from  Warwick  a  paper  in  which  the 
calumnies — and  I  believe  them  to  be  such  —uttered  against  the  great  body 
of  the  working  classes  are  printed  on  placards  and  circulated  amongst  the 
workshops  and  cottages  of  the  working  classes  in  that  borough.  1  wish  they 
were  circulated  in  every  workshop  in  the  kingdom.  I  say  that,  unless  you 
turn  your  faces  against  the  men  who  thus  treated  you,  who  would  injure 
you  and  then  insult  you,  I  do  not  know  to  what  lengths  this  language  and 


conduct  may  not  go  in  the  coming  session  of  Parliament.  This  gentleman, 
who  has  no  constituency — for  the  man  by  whose  favour  he  was  returned  to 
the  House  of  Commons  has  now  gone  down  in  the  tomb — this  gentleman, 
returned  to  Parliament  in  defiance  of  the  British  constitution,  in  defiance  or 
the  orders  of  the  House  of  Commons,  whk:h  has  declared  that  any  attempt 
on  the  part  of  any  peer  to  interfere  with  elections  is  a  breach  of  privilege — 
this  gentleman  used  this  language  in  speaking  of  the  men  to  whom  the  bill 
brought  in  by  Earl  Russell  and  Mr.  Gladstone  proposed  to  give  the  franchise. 
He  asked  us  whether,  if  we  wanted  venality,  ignorance,  drunkenness,  and 
the  means  of  intimidation,  if  we  wanted  impulsive,  unreflecting,  violent 
people,  we  should  go  to  the  top  or  the  bottom.  He  said  he  knew  what  sort 
of  persons  lived  in  these  small  houses,  between  seven  and  ten  pounds  rental. 
We  have  had  a  long  experience  of  them  under  the  name  of  freemen,  and  it 
would  be  a  good  tbing  If  they  were  disfranchised  altogether.  He  also  said 
that  one  of  the  results  of  passing  this  bill,  which  he  did  something  to  pre- 
vent, would  be  an  increase  of  corruption,  intimidation,  disorder,  and  all 
those  evils  which  usually  happen  at  elections.  And  then  he  describes  the 
second  result — that  the  working  men  of  England,  finding  themselves  in  a 
full  majority  of  the  whole  constituency,  would  awake  to  a  sense  of  their 
power,  and  would  do  the  most  dreadful  things,  which  he  describes.  He 
says  they  would  be  no  longer  cajoled  at  elections.  They  would  set  up  for 
themselves.  They  would  have  objects  to  carry  as  well  as  their  neighbours, 
and  would  unite  to  carry  those  objects.  He  says  they  have  the  machinery 
already.  They  have  trades'  unions  and  leaders,  and  the  power  of  combina- 
tion, and  so  describes  the  terrible  and  destructive  things  that  you  Avould 
do  if  you  had  the  franchise,  and  he  says  of  the  House  of  Commons,  "as 
long  as  we  have  not  passed  this  bill,  we  are  masters  of  the  situation." 
Now,  I  have  said  often  that  I  do  not  in  the  least  blame  the  speaker  for 
frankly  speaking  his  sentiments.  I  think  the  sentiments  are  altogether 
erroneous.  I  think  the  courage  which  made  him  express  them  very  un- 
fortunate, but  I  only  consider  the  sentiments  of  importance  because  they 
were  welcomed  with  enthusiasm,  and  apparently  by  an  unanimous  consent, 
by  the  whole  Tory  party  in  the  House.  But  there  is  another  gentleman  who 
does  not  sit  on  our  side  of  the  House,  and  who  now,  by  favour  of  Lord 
Derby,  governs  100,000,000  of  people  in  British  India.  That  gentleman  sits 
for  a  rotten  borough  also.  If  the  member  for  Calne  sits  by  favour  of  one 
marquis,  the  member  for  Stamford  sits  by  favour  of  another  marquis  ;  and 
he  was  the  man  who  assailed  Mr.  Gladstone  with  an  unusual — perhaps  in 
him  not  unusual — but  with  a  notable  animosity,  because  Mr.  Gladstone  said 
that  the  great  body  of  the  unenfranchised  men  of  England  were  worthy  of 
consideration,  for  they  were  our  own  flesh  and  blood.  I  say  that  the  House  of 
Commons,  according  to  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  British  constitution,  and 
according  to  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  its  own  standing  orders,  has  no 
right  to  admit  within  its  walls  any  man  representing  not  a  free  constituency  of 
his  countrymen,  but  representing  only  a  single  lord  and  peer  of  the  realm. 
Now,  if  there  be  in  that  House  of  Commons  not  a  few  of  this  class;  if  there  be 
many  representatives  of  half-a-dozen  great  landowners  who  sit  for  counties, 
is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  liberal  measures  make  so  small  and  difficult 


progress  within  the  walls  of  that  House.  I  was  very  "much  struck  towards 
the  end  of  the  last  session  by  an  answer  that  was'given  to  me  by  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  members  of  that  House,  who  has  taken  his  seat  there 
only  since  the  last  election,  and  I  believe  there  is  no  onan  in  the  House 
whose  opinion  on  a  point  like  this  !•  more  worthy  of  attention.  I  asked  him, 
as  he  had  sat  there  from  the  beginning  of  the  session,  say  from  February  till 
the  month  of  June,  what  he  thought  of  the  House  of  Commons.  His 
answer  was  given  to  me  in  language  of  positive  sorrow.  He  said  that  he 
was  shocked  and  discouraged,  by  what  he  had  seen,  for  he  said,  I  think  this  is 
a  House  in  which  no  good  can  be  done.  Now,  for  what  are  we  met  here 
to-night,  and  for  what  did — I  will  not  say  one  hundred  or  two  hundred 
thousand,  or  a  quarter  of  a  million,  but  a  multitude  whom  no  man  could 
count, — why  did  that  multitude  to-day  quit  all  its  usual  labours  and  avoca- 
tions, march  long  miles  through  your  country,  to  gather  on  your  neighbour- 
ing moor  ?  It  was  to  protest  against  this  state  of  things,  and  if  possible,  to 
change  it,  and  we  are  resolved — now,  you  agree  with  me — we  are  resolved — 
(great  cheering,  the  meeting  rising,  and  waving  handkerchiefs) — that  every 
member  who  sits  in  the  House  of  Commons  shall  have  a  free  constituency 
and  that  the  working  men  in  the  United  Kingdom  shall  form  a  fair  portion 
of  every  free  constituency.  We  propose,  in  fact,  to  restore  the  representation, 
and  to  restore  the  fair  and  free  action  of  the  English  constitution.  We  believe 
that  there  is  a  spirit  created  in  London,  in  Birmingham,  in  South  Lancashire, 
in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  in  the  Newcastle  and  Durham  district,  and 
in  Glasgow  and  the  west  of  Scotland, — there  is  a  power  rising  which,  fairly 
combined,  can  do  all  this.  The  working  men  must  combine,  and  they  must 
subscribe.  A  penny  a  week  or  a  penny  a  month  from  the  thousands  and 
from  the  millions  would  raise  funds  that  would  enable  you  to  carry  on  the 
most  gigantic  and  successful  agitation  that  this  country  has  ever  seen.  It 
is  mainly  your  own  voice  that  will  decide  your  own  fate.  I  do  not  quite 
agree  with  some  of  the  observations  of  our  chairman. — the  observations 
which  have  been  made  to-night,  as  if  there  were  a  chasm  between  you  and 
the  middle  class.  It  is  not  so,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  so,  and  if  you  will  take 
out  small  boroughs,  in  which  the  middle  class  themselves  are  not  inde- 
pendent, you  \vill  find  in  nearly  all  the  great  towns  of  the  kingdom  that  there 
is  a  powerful  middle  class  influence  in  favour  of  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
working  classes  ;  and  bear  in  mind  further,  that  even  of  that  higher  class  in 
the  social  scale — that  class  which  has  great  wealth,  and  high  title,  and  great 
privilege,  that  in  the  history  of  England  there  has  always  been  men  to  stand 
out  from  that  class,  and  to  contend  for  liberty  with  the  great  body  of  their 
countrymen.  If  the  nation  is  to  be  split  into  two  parts,  and  there  is  to  be 
a  wide  gulf  between,  there  is  nothing  for  the  future  but  subjection  or  vio- 
lence, for  without  this  you  are  powerless  to  attain  your  ends.  But,  working 
with  a  large  portion  of  the  middle  class,  and  with  the  most  intelligent  and  just 
of  the  highest  social  class,  we  may  find  these  great  measures  accomplished 
without  the  violation  of  public  peace,  and  without  any  disruption  of  the 
general  harmony  which  ought  to  prevail  throughout  all  classes  of  the  people. 
Therefore  I  say  this,  rely  mainly  upon  yourselves,  for  you  are  the  great 
nation  excluded.  See  what  you  have  done.  I  am  not  saying  this  to  flatter, 


27 

for  no  word  of  flattery  to  the  working  class  or  to  any  other  class  ever  passed 
my  lips  ;  but  when  I  look  over  this  country,  and  see  the  cities  you  b.ave 
built,  the  railroads  you  have  made,  the  manufactures  you  have  produced, 
the  cargoes  which  freight  the  ships  of  the  greatest  mercantile  nation  the 
world  has  ever  seen, — when  I  see  that  you  have  converted  by  your  labour 
what  was  once  a  wilderness,  these  islands,  into  a  fruitful  garden,— when  I 
know  that  you  have  created  this  wealth,  and  that  you  are  a  nation  whose 
name  is  a  word  of  power  throughout  all  the  world, — then  I  feel 
confident,  by  your  united  exertions,  in  conjunction  with  the  middle 
class,  you  can  overthrow  for  ever  the  domination  of  the  class  of  which 
you  complain.  The  few  meetings  which  have  been  held  since  the  close  of 
the  last  session  of  Parliament  have  had  a  prodigious  effect.  There  are  news- 
paper writers  who  could  not  sea  a  bit  from  January  to  July,  and  now  the 
scales  are,  as  it  were,  dropping  from  their  eyes,  and  this  gradual  improve- 
ment of  vision  is  going  on  moat  extensively  throughout  the  country,  and  it 
is  said  now  that  the  Tories  are  half  repenting  the  course  which  they  took 
during  the  last  session.  And  when  I  say  that  Lord  Derby  is  not  a  reformer 
they  charge  me  with  railing  at  Lord  Derby,  and  they  say  that  it  is  a  positive 
case  of  injustice  to  charge  the  Tories  with  being  hostile  to  reform.  Well, 
my  memory  may  not  be  as  accurate  as  that  of  some  people,  but  I  do  recol- 
lect that  during  the  last  session  280  gentlemen  who  call  themselves  Tories 
objected  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  bill  because  it  proposed  to  admit,  according  to 
Mr.  Gladstone's  estimate,  204,000  working  men,  some  of  the  unenfranchised 
5,000,000,  to  the  suffrage.  It  may  be  that  the  Tories  did  not  care  about 
this,  and  that  all  they  wanted  was  power  and  place.  Now,  Lord  Derby,  in 
the  speech  which  he  made  just  after  he  came  into  office,  intimated  in  very 
distinct  language  that  if  he  had  refused  to  accept  it  when  the  Queen  offered 
it  it  would  have  been  the  break  up  of  his  party,  for  they  had  looked  on  the 
Treasury  benches  so  long,  and  with  such  intenseness  of  vision,  with  such 
eagerness,  with  such  hunger  for  what  there  is  there,  that  if  he,  even  for  six 
months,  had  not  allowed  them  to  get  there,  they  would  have  said  that  he 
was  not  worth  following — that  they  gave  up  the  chase,  and  would  not  follow 
it  any  longer.  Well,  for  this  what  did  they  do  ?  They  wasted  a  whole 
session .  They  have  disturbed  the  whole  country,  and  having  made  these 
great  meetings  necessary,  they  have  disgusted  and  estranged  the  unenfran- 
chised classes  merely  to  supplant  Earl  Russell  in  one  House  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  in  the  other.  In  America  there  are  many  political  parties. 
There  is  a  party  that  is  always  seeking  office,  and  it  goes  by  the  name  of 
"the  bread  and  butter  party,"  and  it  turns  out  after  all  that  the  party  of 
Lord  Derby  is  not  an  anti-reform  party,  but  a  bread  and  butter  party.  For 
six  months'  office,  or  it  may  run  to  nine  or  twelve  months,  they  have  rejected 
an  honest  and  good  measure,  they  have  betrayed  the  true  interests  of  the 
people, — and  I  believe  I  have  seen  men  on  that  bench  who  would  sell  the 
mace,  which  is  the  symbol  of  loyalty,  on  the  table  of  the  House,  if  by  doing 
so  they  could  give  to  themselves  fixity  of  tenure  on  the  ministerial  benches. 
Now,  I  must  ask  you  in  all  seriousness  to  let  the  country  know  what  is  our 
object,  what  we  propose,  and  how  far  we  are  honestly  asking  for  what  we 
believe  to  be  good.  I  shall  not  appeal  to  the  writers  in  newspapers,  one  of 


28 

•whom,  and  not  a  very  creditable  one,  is  concealed  somewhere  in  this  town. 
I  shall  appeal  only  to  the  truth-loving  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  this 
country.  Our  object  is  this,  to  restore  popular  representation  in  this  country, 
and  to  make  the  House  of  Commons  the  organ  and  representative  of  the 
nation,  and  not  of  a  small  class  of  it.  If  you  look  over  all  the  world  you  will 
now  see  that  representation  is  extending  everywhere,  and  the  degree  of  its 
completeness  is  becoming  the  measure  of  national  liberty,  not  only  on  the 
North  American  continent,  but  in  the  nations  and  kingdoms  of  old  Europe. 
I  have  mentioned  the  North  American  continent.  To-morrow  is  a  great  day 
in  the  United  States,  when  perhaps  millions  of  men  will  go  to  the  poll,  and 
they  will  give  their  votes  on  the  question  whether  justice  shall  or  shall  not 
be  done  to  the  liberated  African,  and  in  a  day  or  two  we  shall  hear  the  result, 
and  I  shall  be  greatly  surprised  if  that  result  does  not  add  one  more  proof 
to  those  already  given,  of  the  solidity,  intelligence,  and  public  spirit  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  I  have  mentioned  the  North 
American  continent.  I  refer  to  the  colonies  which  are  still  part  of  this 
empire  as  well  as  to  those  other  colonies  which  now  form  a  great  and  free 
republic.  It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  that  the  grand 
old  Genoese  discovered  the  new  world.  A  friend  of  mine,  Cyrus  W.  Field,  of 
New  York — is  the  Columbus  of  our  time,  for  after  no  less  than  forty  passages 
across  the  Atlantic  in  pursuit  of  the  great  aim  of  his  life,  he  has,  at  length, 
by  his  cable,  moored  the  new  world  close  alongside  the  old.  To  speak  from 
the  United  Kingdom  to  the  North  American  continent,  and  from  North 
America  to  the  United  Kingdom,  is  now  but  the  work  of  a  moment  of  time, 
and  it  does  not  require  the  utterance  even  of  a  whisper.  The  English  nations 
are  brought  together  and  they  must  inarch  on  together.  The  spirit  of  either 
Government  must  be  the  same,  although  the  form  may  be  different.  A 
broad  and  generous  freedom  is  the  heritage  of  England,  and  our  purpose  is . 
this,  to  establish  that  freedom  for  ever  on  the  sure  foundation  of  a  broad  and 
generous  representation  of  the  people. 


SPEECHES      AT      GLASGOW. 


ON  the  16th  of  the  same  month,  having  been  invited  to  address  the 
Reformers  of  Glasgow,  Mr.  Bright  visited  that  city  on  the  occasion 
of  the  Reform  Demonstration  ;  and  in  the  City  Hall  in  the  evening 
he  delivered  the  following  speech  to  an  overflowing  and  enthusiastic 
audience.  He  said  : — 

Mr  Chairman,  and  citizens  of  no  mean  city, — I  accept  this  address  which  has 
been  read  in  your  hearing  and  presented  to  me,  with  a  feeling  of  deep  gratitude  to 
those  who  have  expressed  such  friendly  feelings  towards  me,  but  with  a  deep 


29 

anxiety  when  I  consider  the  intent  and  purport  of  the  document.  I  am  consoled 
by  regarding  it  as  in  some  degree  a  compact  or  covenant  entered  into  to-night  by 
you  and  those  whom  you  represent,  with  me  and  those  whom  I  may  be  supposed 
in  some  degree  to  represent,  and  that  we  covenant  together  that  whatsoever  is 
moral  for  us  to  do  we  engage  to  do  in  the  prosecution  of  that  great  cause  which 
has  stirred  the  heart  of  Glasgow  to-day.  I  can  do  but  little — any  one  man  can 
do  but  little  ;  but  you  in  your  vast  numbers  can  do  much,  and,  uniting  with 
numbers,  not  smaller  in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  I  have  a  strong  sense 
that  the  day  is  fast  approaching  which  will  see  the  triumph  of  our  cause,  and  I 
think  he  must  be  blind  and  foolish  indeed  who  is  not  willing  to  admit  that  it  is 
a  great  issue  whish  is  now  submitted  to  the  people  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
Gatherings  of  scores  of  thousands  of  men,  extending  from  south  to  north,  must 
have  some  great  cause.  Men  do  not  leave  their  daily  labour,  the  necessary 
occupations  of  their  lives,  thus  to  meet,  unless  they  believe  there  is  some  great 
question  submitted  to  them  in  which  they  have  a  deep  and  overpowering  interest. 
And  the  question  is  this — Whether  in  future  the  government  and  the  legislation 
of  this  country  shall  be  conducted  by  a  privileged  class  in  a  sham  Parliament, 
or  on  the  principles  of  the  constitution  of  the  nation,  through  its  representatives, 
fairly  and  freely  choosen.  Now  there  are  persons  who  will  think  that  I  am 
speaking  harshly  of  the  existing  Parliament.  Some  probably  in  this  meeting 
may  think  that  Mr.  Beales  was  indiscriminate  in  the  term  which  he  used  when 
he  spoke  of  our  representation  being  steeped  in  corruption ;  but  I  ani  certain 
that  if  the  representation  of  this  country  existed  in  any  other  country,  and  that 
its  details  were  explained  to  Englishmen,  there  are  not  five  Englishmen  within 
the  bounds,  or  five  Britons  within  the  bounds  of  this  island,  who  would  not 
admit  that  the  language  he  has  applied  to  the  Parliament  was  correct.  Now, 
what  we  charge  against  the  Parliament  is  this — that  it  is  chosen  from  consti- 
tviencies  not  only  so  small  that  they  do  not  and  cannot  adequately  represent  the 
nation,  but  from  constituencies  so  small  as  to  be  influenced  by  corruption,  and 
by  all  kind  of  motives  that  are  neither  national  nor  patriotic.  In  our  boroughs, 
for  example,  the  numbers  for  the  most  part  are  very  small.  There  are,  I  think, 
'254  burghs  in  the  United  Kingdom,  but  there  are  only  54  of  these  that  possess  a 
constituency  of  2,000  electors  and  upwards,  and  large  and  fair  constituencies 
arc  indeed  the  exception.  In  Scotland,  your  burgh  constituencies,  though  not 
generally  very  large,  are  larger  than  those  in  England,  and  to  your  honour  it 
must  be  said  that  they  are  far  more  incorrupt  than  English  constituencies.  In 
the  counties  the  freeholders — those  who  hold  land  for  cultivation — are  constantly 
diminishing  in  numbers,  and  that  portion  of  the  constituencies  which  is  not 
composed  of  freeholders,  is  composed  of  tenant  farmers — the  most  dependent 
class  of  occupiers,  probably  in  the  nation.  But  now,  let  me  point  to  one  or  two 
facts  which  should  sink  deep  in  the  minds  of  all  men.  Out  of  every  100  grown 
men  in  the  United  Kingdom  84  have  no  votes.  Those  84  might  just  as  well, 
for  all  purposes  of  constitutional  government,  so  far  as  they  are  directly 
concerned — those  84  might  as  well  live  in  Eussia,  where  there  is  no 
electoral  system  of  government,  or  in  those  other  countries,  now  very  few 
indeed,  in  which  Parliaments  and  representations  are  unknown.  If  it  be  the 
fact  that  only  sixteen  men  out  of  every  hundred  have  votes,  it  is  also  the  fact 
that  those  16  are  so  arranged,  and  so  placed,  that  their  representation  is  in 


80 

reality  almost  entirely  destroyed.  If  the  electors  were  fairly  divided  amongst 
all  the  members,  there  would  be  nearly  2,000  eleetors  to  every  member  ;  but 
what  is  the  state  of  things?  Why,  that  one-third  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
or  220  members,  are  actually  elected  by  70,000  votes— that  is  to  say,  that  220 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons  are  chosen  by  a  number  of  men  scattered 
over  the  country,  who  are  fewer  by  almost  one-half  than  the  number  of  grown 
men  in  this  city  of  Glasgow  alone.  And  further,  one-half  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  chosen  by  about  180,000  electors,  being  only  one-seventh  of  the  whole 
number  of  electors,  and  much  below  the  number  of  men  who  are  to  be  found  in 
the  cities  of  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  And  if  we  come  to  that  great  event  which 
excites  so  mueh  interest,  but  which  is  generally  of  so  little  value — a  general 
election — we  find,  I  believe,  that  not  more  than  10  in  100 — not  more  than  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  grown-up  male  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  ever 
come  to  the  poll  and  give  their  vote  for  the  election  of  a  new  Parliament.  Now, 
with  regard  to  a  general  election,  some  of  you  have  read,  and  many  of  you  know 
something  of  the  cost  and  corruption  of  a  general  election.  I  will  give  you  one 
instance  and  one  proof  of  it.  It  has  been  my  opinion  all  along  that  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  Government  of  Lord  Russell,  after  the  defeat  of  their  Reform  Bill 
during  the  last  session,  to  have  dissolved  the  Parliament.  I  have  no  reason  to 
disbelieve  what  is  asserted,  that  Lord  Russell  himself  was  of  that  opinion,  but 
a  general  election  was  a  burden  which  the  members  of  Parliament  did  no; 
to  bear.  I  was  speaking  to  a  member  of  the  Government  on  this  question 
about  the  time  when  the  resignation  of  the  late  Government  was  just  about  t  ; 
be  submitted  to  the  Queen,  and  I  was  telling  him  that  I  thought  the  true  policy, 
the  constitutional  policy,  of  the  Government  was  to  dissolve  the  Parliament. 
A  portion  of  his  answer  was  this : — A  member  who  sits  on  our  side  of  the  House 
had  spoken  to  him  about  it.  He  said,  "My  election  has  already  cost  me 
£6,000" — and  he  added,  "I  have,  besides,  £3000  more  to  pay."  He  said  fur- 
ther, what  was  very  reasonable,  that  this  was  a  heavy  burden,  that  it  was 
grievous  to  be  borne,  that  it  put  him  to  exceeding  inconvenience,  and,  if  the 
Parliament  were  dissolved,  he  could  not  afford  to  fight  his  county  or  his  borough, 
as  the  case  might  be,  but  would  be  obliged  to  retire  from  the  field,  and  leave  the 
contest,  if  there  should  be  a  contest,  to  some  one  else.  You  will  believe,  then,  that 
the  Government  were  greatly  pressed  by  this  consideration,  and  this  considera- 
tion, added,  it  maybe,  toothers,  induced  them  to  resign  office  rather  than  to  dis- 
solve Parliament.  Thus  you  have  a  proof  that  whereas  general  corruption  and 
putridity  are  the  destruction  of  most  bodies  which  they  affect,  the  corruption  of 
the  present  Parliament  was,  and  is,  the  cause  of  its  present  existence.  New 
bear  in  mind  that  this  state  of  things  which  I  have  been  describing  obtains  at 
the  present  moment,  34:  years  after  the  passing  of  the  great  Reform  Bill. 
What  the  Government  must  have  been  before  that  bill  was  passed  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  describe  or  to  imagine  ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  of  this,  that  it  was  one 
of  the  •worst  governments  in  civilised  countries,  and  in  Europe  ;  and  I  think 
this  may  be  fairly  argued  from  the  fact  of  the  incessant  wars  in  which  the  coun- 
try was  engaged  for  loO  years  before  that  reform  ;  from  the  enormous  debt 
that  was  created  ;  from  the  crushing  taxes  that  were  fixed  upon  the  people ;  and, 
worse  almost  than  that,  from  that  most  infamous  law  which  ever  passed  a 
Parliament  of  civilised  men — the  law  which  limited  the  supply  of  bread  to  the 


31 

people.     Now,  if  the  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  placed  at  Temple 
Bar,  and  if  he  had  orders  to  tap  upon  the  shoulder  every  we  11-dressed  and  ap- 
parently cleanly-washed  man  who   passed  through   that   ancient  bar,    until 
he    had    numbered    658 ;     and    if    the     Crown    summoned    these    658     to 
be    the    Parliament    of   the     United    Kingdom,    my    honest    conviction    is 
that  you  would  have  a  belter  Parliament  than  now  exists.     Now  this  assertion 
will  stagger  some  timid  and  some  good  men ;  but  let  me  explain  myself  to  you. 
It  would  be  a  Parliament,  every  member  of  which  would  have  no  direct  con- 
stituency, but  it  would  be  a  Parliament  that  would  act  as  a  jury  that  would  take 
some  heed  of  the  facts  and  arguments  laid  before  it.      It  would  be  free,  at  any 
rate,  from  the  class  prejudices  which  weigh  upon  the  present  House  of  Com- 
mons.    It  would  be  free  from  the   overshadowing  pressure  of  what  are  called 
noble  families.     It  would  owe  no  allegiance  to  great  landowners,  and  I  hope  it 
would  have  fewer  men  amongst  it  seeking  their  own  gains  by  entering  Parlia- 
ment.    With  the  Parliament  which  we  have  now  and  have  had,  facts  and 
arguments  go  for  very  little.      Take  that  question  to  which  I  have  referred,  of 
limiting  the  supply  of  bread  to  the  people.     The  corn  law  was  on  the  statute- 
book  for  31  years — 16  years  before  the  Eeform  Bill,  and  15  years  after  the 
passing  of  that  bill — but  from  the  first  hour  of  its  enactment  until  the  hour  of 
its  destruction  the  facts  and  the  arguments  against  it  were  equally  clear  and 
equally  conclusive.     They  would  not  be  convinced  though  one  rose  from  the 
dead,  and  that  which  convinced  them  at  last  was  the  occurrence  of  a  great 
famine  in  Ireland,  which  destroyed  or  drove  from  the  country  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  the  citizens  of  the  empire.     I  maintain  with  the  most  perfect 
conviction  that  the  House  of  Commons,  representing  as  it  now  does  counties 
and  boroughs  such  as  I  have  described,  does  not  represent  the  intelligence  and 
the  justice  of  the  nation,  but  the  prejudices,  the  privileges,  and  the  selfishness 
of  a  class.     Now,  what  are  the  results  of  this  system  of  legislation  ?     Some  of 
them  have  been  touched  upon  in  that  address  which  has  been  so  kindly  pre- 
sented to  me.    You  refer  to  the  laws  affecting  land.     Are  you  aware  of  a  fact 
which  I  saw  stated  the  other  day  in  an  essay  on  this  subject — that  half  the  land 
of  England  is  in  the  possession  of  fewer  than  150  men  ?     Are  you  aware  of  the 
fact  that  half  the  land  in  Scotland  is  in  the  possession  of  not  more  than  10  or  1 2 
men  ?    Are  you  awaro  of  the  fact  that  the  monopoly  in  land  in  the  United 
Kingdom  is  growing  constantly  more  and  more  close  ?     And  the  result  of  it  is 
this — the  gradual  extirpation  of  the  middle  class  as  owners  of  land,  and  the 
constant  degradation  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil.    Take  a  matter  about  which  many 
Scotch  farmers  know  something — take  the  perpetual  grievance  of  the  game  laws. 
In  the  House  of  Commons  that  question  can  scarcely  be  discussed.    The  landed 
intei^st,  as  it  did  in  the  late  cattle  plague  debate,  tramples  down  Government 
and  borough  members  and  everybody  and  everything  that  thwarts  their  inclina- 
tion.    Take  the  general — I  ara  sorry  to  say  the  too  general — subserviency  of 
the  tenant  farmers  in  the  matter  of  elections  in  your  country — in  Scotland.     I 
entertain  the  hope  that  you  will  lead  the  way  to  the  deliverance  of  the  farmers 
from  this  slavery.     In  the  last  elections  for  Kincardineshire  and  for  Aberdeen- 
shire,  the  tenant  farmers  have  taken  the  politics  of  those  counties  into  their 
own  hands.     I  hope,  and  I  believe,  that  the  tenant  farmers  of  Scotland — the 
most  enlightened  agriculturists  that  live  on  the  face  of  the  earth — I  hope  they, 


with  pei-fect  justice,  and  perfect  courtesy  to  their  landowners,  will  still  exert 
their  legitimate  and  right  influence  in  the  election  of  members  for  the  counties 
of  Scotland.  But  take — what  some  of  you  cannot  comprehend — take  the  help- 
less poverty  of  the  farm  labourers  in  the  southern  counties  of  England.  Their 
wages  are  very  low.  Their  helplessness  is  extreme.  Their  power  to  deliver 
themselves — their  power  to  combine  seems  at  the  lowest  ebb.  Look  at  their 
ignorance  !  A  friend  of  mine — a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  who  lives 
within  six  miles  of  the  Royal  town  and  Castle  of  Windsor,  told  me  only  the 
other  day  that  he  knew  the  case  of  a  family  near  his  house  in  which  there  had 
grown  up  eleven  children,  not  one  of  whom  could  read  or  write  in  the  least 
degree.  And  he  said  that  he  had  lately  had  in  his  employ  upon  his  property 
seven  men,  of  whom  four  could  neither  read  nor  write,  two  of  them  could 
read  most  imperfectly,  and  one  of  them  could  read  and  write  about  as 
well  as  the  other  two  could  read.  Bear  in  mind  that  all  this  exists 
within  six  miles  of  the  Royal  Castle  of  Windsor.  It  exists  in  a  neigh- 
bourhood where  lords  and  squires  and  established  clergymen  swarm.  Such  is 
the  state  of  ignorance  of  that  population  at  this  moment.  In  the  county  from 
which  I  come,  girls  of  the  age  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  years  are  earning  ;  many 
of  them,  I  believe,  double  the  weekly  wages  of  the  able-bodied  farm  labourer, 
the  head  and  father  of  a  family,  in  some  of  the  southwestern  counties  of 
England.  But  what  must  be  the  ignorance  of  that  population  with  such  wages 
offering  to  them  in  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  that  they  scarcely  hear  of  them. 
They  seem  to  have  no  aspiration  to  better  their  condition,  and  there  is  no 
sensible  emigration  from  these  wretched  counties  to  the  more  prosperous  coun- 
ties of  the  north.  Your  address  refers  to  pauperism — the  gulf  of  pauperism. 
In  the  United  Kingdom  at  this  moment  there  are  more  than  1,200,000  paupers. 
The  pauperism  of  the  United  Kingdom  last  year — and  it  will  not  cost  less,  1 
believe,  this  year — cost  the  ratepayers — those  who  pay  taxes  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor — more  than  seven  a  half  millions  sterling,  and  this  does  not  include  many 
thousands  of  vagrants  who  also  come  occasionally  under  the  name  of  paupers. 
Now  look,  I  beg  of  you,  to  this  mass  of  misery.  It  is  so  great  a  mass  that 
benevolence  cannot  reach  it.  If  benevolence  could  do  it,  there  would  be  no 
pauperism  in  England,  for  in  no  country  do  I  believe  that  there  is  more  benevo- 
lence than  there  is  in  the  United  Kingdom.  The  kindness  of  the  women  of 
England  is  beyond  all  measure  and  beyond  all  praise  of  mine.  There  does  not 
exist  among  created  beings,  beneath  the  angelic  ranks,  those  who  are  more  kind 
and  charitable  than  the  women  of  the  United  Kingdom.  But  benevolence  can 
touch  scarcely  the  fringe  of  this  vast  disorder.  There  is  another  virtue  we  could 
add,  and  that  virtue  and  that  quality  is  justice.  It  is  not  benevolence  but 
justice  that  can  deal  with  giant  evils.  It  was  not  benevolence  that  gave  the 
people  bread  twenty  years  ago,  but  it  was  justice  embodied  in  the  abolition  of  a 
cruel  and  a  guilty  law.  But  justice  is  impossible  from  a  class.  It  is  most 
certain  and  easy  from  a  nation  ;  and  I  believe  we  can  only  reach  the  depths  of 
ignorance  and  misery  and  crime  in  this  country  by  an  appeal  to  the  justice,  the 
intelligence,  and  the  virtue  of  the  entire  people.  That  address  has  mentioned 
another  question — the  question  of  your  national  expenditure,  of  your  army  and 
navy ;  and  I  will  state  only  one  fact  with  regard  to  the  navy.  I  believe  since 
the  great  war,  since  1815,  that  the  navy  of  this  country  has  cost  more  than  four 


33 

hundred  millions  sterling.  I  believe  that  during  the  last  six  years  it  has  cost 
as  much  as  the  United  States  navy  during  the  same  time :  we  have  heen  in  a 
condition  of  profound  peace  ;  the  United  States  have  had  to  build  or  buy  six 
hundred  ships,  to  man  them,  to  furnish  them  with  munitions  of  war,  and  to 
fight  them  during  the  greatest  struggle  that  any  nation  ever  waged.  And  yet  at 
this  moment,  after  spending  so  much,  we  have  Sir  John  Pakington,  the  great 
recoustructor,  coming  into  office,  and  promising,  not  to  extend  the  liberties  of 
the  people,  but  to  reconstruct  a  navy  on  which  such  enormous  and  countless 
sums  have  already  been  sunk.  Then,  take  the  taxes.  Well,  something  has 
been  done  to  make  the  taxes  more  eq  ual ;  but  take  the  taxes  which  are  levied 
under  the  name  of  probate  and  legacy  and  succession  duties  ;  and  I  will  give 
you  a  case  which  it  is  just  possible  you  have  heard  before  from  my  lips.  A. 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons — at  least  he  was  so  when  he  gave  me  this 
fact,  though  I  am  sorry  to  say  he  is  not  one  now — a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  told  me  he  had  had  left  to  him  by  a  person  not  related  to  him  by 
blood  an  estate  in  land  worth  £21,000  ;  the  timber  upon  it  was  worth  £11,000 ; 
altogether  £32,000.  The  tax,  when  the  property  is  left  to  a  person  who  is  not 
a  relation  of  the  man  who  leaves  it,  is  10'per  cent. ;  the  tax  therefore  on  £32,000 
would  be  £3,200 ;  and  if  any  one  of  you  received  a  legacy  like  that  in  cash,  in 
shares,  in  ships,  in  stock-in-trade,  in  any  of  those  things  which  are  not  lands 
and  houses,  he  would  pay  £3,200.  But  my  friend  receiving  his  legacy  in 
land,  and  the  timber  upon  it,  paid  just  £700.  And  why  '  For  this  reason 
only,  that  the  law  was  made  by  a  landed  and  propertied  Parliament,  and 
the  owners  and  inheritors  of  lands  and  houses  were  considered  specially 
worthy  of  its  regard.  But  I  may  be  asked — and  no  doubt  some 
man  who,  after  this  meeting,  will  take  up  his  pen  to  write  a  criticism 
on  my  speech,  or  upon  this  meeting,  will  ask — how  comes  it,  if  Par- 
liament is  so  bad,  that  so  many  good  things  have  been  done  by  Parliament 
during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  ?  I  acknowledge  that  good  thiugs  have 
been  done,  and  I  ought  to  know,  because  I  have  been  concerned  in  the  doing 
of  some  of  them.  But  by  whom  were  they  done?  Mainly  by  that  force  in 
Parliament  which  is  sent  there  by  the  great  and  free  borough  constituencies  of 
the  kingdom.  The  members  for  the  great  towns — although  but  a  minority, 
and  not  a  very  large  minority — are  the  moving  force  by  which  these  good 
things  have  been  done.  It  has  not  been  the  policy  of  the  Tories  to  do  good 
things — and  I  have  seen  the  time  when  the  Whigs  have  been  much  less 
zealous  about  them  than  t  could  have  wished.  They  have  sprung  from  tha 
people,  and  the  peoplo  have  carried  them.  What  there  has  been  of  real 
representation  in  Parliament  has  urged  these  measures  forward.  What  there 
has  been  of  sham  representation  has  uniformly  opposed  these  measures. 
Now,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  rich  people  of  a  country,  invested  with  power, 
and  speaking  generally  for  rich  people  alone,  cannot  sufficiently  care  for  the 
multitude  and  the  poor.  They  are  personally  kind  enough,  but  they  do  not 
care  for  the  people  in  the  bulk.  They  have  read  a  passage  in  Holy  Writ  that 
"  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you" — and  therefore  they  imagine  that  it  is  a 
providential  arrangement  that  a  small  section  of  the  people  should  be  rich 
end  powerful,  and  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  should  be  hardworking 
and  poor.  It  is  a  long  distance  from  castles,  and  mansions,  and  great  houses, 

o 


and  abounding  luxuries,  to  the  condition  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people  *ho 
have  no  property,  and  too  many  of  whom  are  almost  always  on  the  verge  of 
poverty.  We  know  very  well  all  of  us  how  much  we  are  influenced  l>y  the 
immediate  circumstances  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  The  rich  find  every- 
thing just  as  they  like.  The  country  needs  no  reform.  There  is  no  country 
ia  the  world  so  pleasant  for  rich  people  as  this  country.  But  I  deny  alto- 
gether that  the  rich  alone  are  qualified  to  legislate  tor  the  poor,  any  more  than 
that  the  poor  alone  would  be  qualified  to  legislate  for  the  rich.  TJy  honest 
belief  is,  that  if  we  could  be  all  called  upon  to  legislate  for  all,  that  all  would 
be  more  justly  treated,  and  would  be  mora  happy  than  we  are  now.  We  should 
have  then  an  average;  we  should  have  the  influence  of  wealth  and  of  high 
culture,  and  of  those  qualities  that  come  from  lei  sun?,  and  the  influence  of 
those  robuster  qualities  that  come  from  industry  and  from  labour.  Suppose 
now,  without  arguing  for  this  or  that  particular  measure  of  Keforni,  that  we 
could  add  another  million  to  the  existing  constituencies,  what  would  be  the 
result  ?  We  should  modify  the  constituencies.  Instead  of  the  people  coming 
to  the  hustings  at  the  nomination  and  holding  up  their  hands  for  this  candi- 
date or  that,  and  having  for  the  most  part  no  power  in  the  election,  the  inha- 
bitants of  the  town  would  have  a  much  greater  power  than  they  have  now. 
The  constituency  would  be  less  open  to  management  than  it  is  at  present; 
majorities  on  one  side  or  the  other  would  be  larger  and  less  open  to  corrup- 
tion ;  and  we  should  have  members  whosa  opinions  and  whose  conduct  would 
be  modified  by  this  infusion  of  new  and  fresh  blood  into  the  constituents 
which  send  them  to  Parliament.  We  should  do  this  further — we  should  bring 
the  rich  and  the  great  more  into  contact  with  the  people,  and  into  a  better 
acquaintance  with  human  wants  and  with  the  necessities  and  feelings  of  their 
countrymen.  What  other  thing  would  happen  ?  I  dare  venture  to  assert 
this,  that  Parliament  then  would  not  revile  and  slander  the  people  as  it  does  now. 
Nor  would  it  cheer  with  frantic  violence  when  their  countrymen  are  described  in 
hideous  and  hateful  colours.  Probably  what  I  call  the  Botany  Bay  view  of  their 
countrymen  would  be  got  rid  of,  and  we  should  have  a  sense  of  greater  justice 
and  generosity  in  the  feeling  with  which  they  regard  the  bulk  of  the  ration. 
And  if  there  was  more  knowledge  of  the  people  there  would  assuredly  be  more 
sympathy  with  them  ;  and  I  believe  the  legislation  of  the  House,  being  more 
in  accordance  with  the  public  sentiment,  would  be  wiser  and  better  in  every 
respect.  The  nation  would  be  changed.  There  would  be  amongst  us  a 
greater  growth  of  everything  that  is  good.  I  should  like  to  ask  if  there  are 
any  ministers  of  religion  in  this  audience.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I 
should  like  to  have  an  audience  of  4,000  or  5,000  of  them,  to  whom  I  could 
preach  a  political  sermon,  and  to  whom.  I  could  teD  something  which  I  fear 
their  theological  schools  have  failed  to  teach  them.  An  eminent  man  cf  your 
country,  the  late  Dr.  Chalmers,  in  speaking  of  the  question  of  free  trade,  and 
particularly  of  the  struggle  for  the  abolition  of  the  corn  laws,  uttered  some  mem- 
orable words.  He  said  he  thought  there  was  nothing  fiat  would  tend  so  to 
sweeten  the  breath  of  British  society  as  the  abolition  of  the  corn  laws.  I  believe 
now  that  there  is  nothing  which  would  tend  so  to  sweeten  the  breath  of  British 
society  as  the  admission  of  a  large  and  generous  number  of  the  working 
classes  to  citizenship  and  the  exercise  of  the  fraudiiiT.  >"ow,  if  my  words 


35 

should  reach  the  ears  and  reach  the  heart  of  any  man  who  is  interested 
in  the  advancement  of  religion  in  this  country,  I  ask  him  to  consider  whether 
there  are  not  great  political  obstacles  to  the  extension  of  civilisation  and 
morality  and  religion  within  the  bounds  of  the  United  Kingdom.  We 
believe — these  ministers,  you,  and  I — we  believe  in  a  Supreme  Ruler  of  the 
Universe.  We  believe  in  His  omnipotence  ;  we  believe  and  we  humbly  trust 
in  His  mercy.  We  know  that  the  strongest  argument  which  is  used  against 
that  belief,  by  those  who  reject  it,  is  an  argument  drawn  from  the  misery,  and 
the  helplessness,  and  the  darkness  of  so  many  of  our  race,  even  in  countries 
which  call  themselves  civilised  and  Christian.  Is  not  that  the  fact  ?  If  I 
believed  that  that  misery,  and  that  helplessness,  and  that  darkness  could  not 
be  touched  or  transformed,  I  myself  should  he  driven  to  admit  the  almost 
overwhelming  force  of  that  argument;  but  I  am  convinced  that  just  laws, 
and  an  enlightened  administration  of  them,  would  change  the  face  of  the 
country.  I  believe  that  ignorance  and  suffering  might  be  lessened  to  an 
incalculable  extent,  and  that  many  an  Eden,  beauteous  in  flowers  and  rich 
in  fruits,  might  be  raised  up  in  the  waste  wilderness  which  spreads  before  us. 
But  no  class  can  do  that.  The  class  which  has  hitherto  ruled  in  this  country 
has  failed  miserably.  It  revels  in  power  and  wealth,  whilst  at  its  feet,  a 
terrible  peril  for  its  future  lies — the  multitude  which  it  has  neglected.  If  a 
class  has  failed,  let  us  try  the  nation.  That  is  our  faith,  that  is  our  purpose, 
that  is  our  cry — Let  us  try  the  nation.  This  it  is  which  has  called  together 
these  countless  numbers  of  the  people  to  demand  a  change  ;  and,  as  I  think 
of  it,  and  of  these  gatherings,  sublime  in  their  vastness  and  in  their  resolution, 
I  think  I  see,  as  it  were,  above  the  hill  tops  of  time,  the  glimmerings  of  the 
dawn  of  a  better  and  a  nobler' day  for  the  country  and  for  the  people  that  I 
love  so  well. 


ON  the  following  morning  Mr.  Bright  was  entertained  at  a  public 
breakfast  at  the  Gobden  Hotel,  in  the  same  city,  when  several 
speeches  were  delivered.  Mr.  Bright  spoke  as  follows,  after  a 
reference  to  the  complimentary  remarks  to  himself  of  previous 
speakers  : — 

Passing  away  from  sentiment  to  business,  it  occurs  to  me  that,  although 
it  is  now  a  long  time  since  Scotland  and  England  were  united  as  one  country, 
and  although  they  are,  as  I  believe,  for  ever,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  inseparably 
united,  yet,  being  in  Scotland,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  consider  any  public 
question  without  some  direct  reference  to  Scottish  interests.  The  position 
of  this  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  question  of  reform  is  one 
very  peculiar,  and  one  having  a  special  interest.  Scotland  has  as  I 
think  every  fair  man  will  admit,  not  her  proper  share  in  the  «omposition 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  I  am  not  quite  certain  now  what  is  the  increaesd 
number  of  members  that  Scotland  should  have,  judging  arithmetically  from 
her  population,  her  wealth,  and  her  contribution  to  the  public  taxes ;  but  I 
think  the  increase  should  not  be  much  short  of  twenty  members.  In  a  bill 


36 

which  I  brought  before  the  public  soon  after  I  was  here  eight  years  ago,  and 
for  the  preparation  of  which  I  was  greatly  indebted  to  my  hon.  relative  the 
member  for  Edinburgh — in  that  bill  I  think  I  proposed  that  an  addition  of 
fifteen  or  sixteen — Mr.  M'Laren  says  he  thinks  it  was  eighteen — additional 
members,  should  be  given  to  Scotland.  In  the  bill  which  the  late  Govern- 
ment introduced  to  the  House  of  Commons,  I  think  the  addition  proposed  was 
seven.  That  was  a  measure  of  partial,  rather  of  scanty,  justice ;  but  still  it 
was  looked  upon  with  extreme  jealousy,  and  was  met  by  a  strong  threatened 
opposition  on  the  part  of  the  Tory  party  in  the  House.  I  am  not  very  much 
surprised  at  the  jealousy  and  the  threatened  opposition  which  I  find  in  discuss- 
ing the  question  of  Reform.  The  Tories,  members  of  the  present  Government, 
their  supporters  in  Parliament,  and  their  newspapers,  constantly  regard  the 
question  as  one  which  is  to  add  power  to  or  take  power  from  a  given  party. 
They  discuss  it  as  if  it  were  not  a  question — as  it  is  not  with  them — of  justice 
to  all  the  people,  and  of  a  fair  representation  to  all  classes,  but  as  it  may 
interfere  with  and  affect  then:  particular  party  interests.  Therefore  it  was  not 
to  he  wondered  at  that,  seeing  the  condition  of  the  representation  of  Scotland, 
the  members  of  the  present  Government,  then  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition, 
and  their  friends  in  Parliament,  should  look  with  great  hostility  upon  any 
proposition  that  proposed  to  transfer  members  from  small,  corrupt,  and  rotten 
boroughs  in  England,  to  independent,  moral,  and  sober  constituencies  in  this 
part  of  the  island.  But  the  English  people,  I  believe,  certainly  the  English 
reformers,  have  no  such  jealousy,  because  they  accept  freely  the  entire,  the 
thorough,  the  perpetual  union  of  the  two  countries,  and  therefore  they  regard 
every  Scotchman  as  they  regard  an  Englishman  in  this  question  of  reform, 
and  they  have  this  additional  inducement  to  do  so,  because  they  know  at  lease 
that  the  Scottish  people  in  their  representation  will  do  as  well  for  England  and 
for  Englishmen  certainly  as  any  part  of  England  does  for  itself  or 
for  Scotland.  Your  representation  is  in  a  peculiar  position,  as  compared  with 
that  of  any  other  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom.  In  the  first  place,  you  send 
no  Tory  members  for  any  of  your  boroughs.  There  are  two  of  your  borough 
members,  who  did  not  behave  very  well  during  the  last  session  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  who,  I  believe,  disappointed  their  constituencies  very  much  ;  and 
if  their  constituencies  had  been  sitting  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  had  heard  all  that  took  place,  I  am  not  sure  that  their  doubts  of 
the  fidelity  of  those  members  would  not  have  been  very  much  strengthened. 
But  still  your  borough  constituencies  are  in  this  condition — that  not  only  do 
they  return  no  Tory  to  Parliament,  but  there  is  no  Tory  party  in  any  one  of 
those  boroughs  sufficiently  strong  to  feel  itself  justified  in  proposing  a  Tory 
candidate  for  the  approbation  of  the  constituency.  That  is  a  very  satisfactory 
state  of  things.  I  could  give  some  reasons  for  it  which  probably  have  not 
struck  some  people  in  England,  and  perhaps  have  not  occurred  to  people  in 
Scotland.  One  reason  is  that  you  have  no  boroughs  so  small  as  the  very 
small  boroughs  in  England  ;  secondly,  that  your  population,  as  a  whole,  stands 
in  a  higher  position  with  regard  to  education  and  political  intelligence;  and 
thirdly,  you  have  in  Scotland  (I  speak  of  the  Established,  apart  from  what 
may  be  called  the  Free  Churches)  a  church  establishment  which,  though  I 
think  a  church  establishment  may  be  considered  to  le  politically  and  reli- 


37 

giously  an  evil,  yet  you  have  a  church  establishment  of  a  liberal  and  even  of  a 
republican  form  of  government  as  compared  with  the  hierarchical  establish- 
ment of  England.  And  in  Scotland  tke  boundaries  of  the  Established  Church 
do  not,  with  any  degree  of  accuracy,  if  they  do  at  all,  mark  out  the  boundaries 
of  a  political  party.  In  England  it  is  otherwise,  and  the  Established  Church, 
of  England  is,  in  point  of  fact  (with,  of  course,  a  multitude  of  exceptions), 
the  Tory  party  of  England.  These  are  the  reasons,  I  believe,  why  in  this 
country  your  representation  is,  in  my  opinion,  so  much  more  creditable  to 
your  intelligence  and  advantageous  to  the  empire  than  that  of  other  parts  of 
the  United  Kingdom.  Your  counties,  however,  are  not  in  a  position  so  dis- 
tinguished as  your  boroughs  ;  but  I  was  glad  to  have  the  testimony  two  years 
ago  of  one  of  your  county  members,  and  a  highly  respectable  member  too,  to 
the  fact  that  the  counties  were,  as  I  think,  making  progress,  but  as  doubtless, 
he  thought,  were  going  backward.  I  met  him  in  the  Highlands,  and  in  the 
intervals  of  some  Highland  games  that  were  proceeding  we  discussed  a  little 
of  politics,  and  the  difference  between  the  constituencies  of  Scotland  and 
England.  He  said,  with  rather  a  melancholy  air  and  sadness  in  his  voice, 
"  Yes,  you  have  got  all  the  boroughs  in  Scotland,"  meaning  the  Liberal  party, 
"  and  you  are  gradually  taking  all  the  counties."  That  statement  has  re- 
ceived some  confirmation  since  then.  Two  counties  to  which  I  referred  last 
night,  Kincardineshire  and  Aberdeenshke,  have  returned  members  not  of  that 
party  which  has  hitherto  dominated  amongst  the  landed  proprietors,  and  there 
is  some  reason  to  believe  that  the  complaint  which  has  made  its  appearance 
among  the  tenant  farmers  of  those  counties  may  prove  infectious  or 
contagious,  and  may  spreid  over  their  borders  and  infect  other  coun- 
ties as  well.  I  cannot  believe,  for  example,  that  in  the  county  of 
Haddington  the  tenant  farmers  will  consent  to  be  represented  long  as 
they  are  now.  "When  I  look  back  to  the  conduct  of  the  member  for  that 
county  at  the  last  election  oil  the  hustings  ;  when  I  look  to  his  conduct  in  the 
House  of  Commons  with  regard  to  the  requirements  and  interests  of  the  people, 
and  in  connection  with  this  question  of  reform,  I  will  never  believe,  until  the 
Scotch  people  are  wholly  changed,  that  there  can  be  in  any  county  of  Scotland 
a  population,  or  an  electoral  body  even,  that  can  be  in  favour  of  representation 
by  a  gentleman  whose  performances  have  been  so  marked  in  a  direction  adverse, 
as  I  believe,  and  as  I  think  they  believe,  to  the  true  interests  of  the  people. 
The  Scottish  farmers  are,  probably,  the  best  agriculturists  in  Europe,  and  it  is 
a  great  pleasure,  not  only  to  travel  through  the  Highlands  of  your  country, 
but  to  travel  through  the  Lowlands,  where  there  is  so  much  fertility,  and  where 
the  harvests  bear  testimony  to  the  industry  and  skill  of  the  cultivators.  But 
it  is  a  melancholy  thing  to  think  that  those  men  who  can  do  so  much  with  the 
soil  should  be  in  any  degree  acting  under  a  sort  of  traditional  subserviency  to  the 
owner  of  the  soil,  and  neglecting  or  refusing  to  exercise  freely  the  powers  which 
the  constitution  has  placed  in  their  hands.  The  fault  is  far  more  obvious  and 
jfar  more  grievous  in  England ;  but  as  Scotch  farmers  have  led  the  farmers 
of  the  United  Kingdom  in  a  wise  and  successful  cultivation  of  the  soil,  I  know 
not  why  they  should  not  lead  them  in  that  emancipation  from  the  political 
.domination  of  their  landlords,  which,  I  am  sure,  before  many  years,  will  come, 
not  only  in  Scotland,  but  through  every  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom.  Mr. 


38 

Crawford  has  referred  to  the  transactions  of  yesterday.  I  was  present  at  the 
great  meeting  and  the  great  procession  in  Birmingham.  I  heard  much  of  the 
meeting  in  Manchester,  and  also  of  that  -which  was  held  last  week  In.  the 
West  Hiding  of  Yorkshire.  I  am  certain  the  transactions  of  yesterday  do 
not  fall  below  in  any  degree  those  to  which  I  have  referred.  I  will  not 
Tenture  uppn  language  of  great  eulogy  upon  what  I  saw,  but  for  three  hours 
there  passed  before  this  window  a  procession  of  men.  I  think  the  6maHest 
and  most  moderate  computation  of  their  numbers,  made  with  regard  to  the 
speed  hey  passed,  would  bring  the  procession  to  a  number  exceeding  50,,000, 
and  probably  reaching  60,000  men.  Look  at  their  demeanour,  look  at  their 
dress,  look  at  the  character  stamped  upon  their  countenances,  look  at  the 
variety  of  the  industries  which  they  represented,  look  at  the  feeling  of  prifle  they 
had  in  the  noble  labours  in  which  their  lives  are  spent.  Take  into  consideration 
all  this,  and  say  whether  it  be  right,  and  whether  it  be  safe — for  that  is  the 
dogma  of  the  Tory  party — perpetually  to  deny  to  these  men  those  common 
rights  which  belong  to  all  the  citizens  of  this  country,  upon  the  known  and 
admitted  principles  of  the  British  constitution.  Your  motto  is,  "  Let  Glasgow 
flourish !"  But  what  would  Glasgow  be  without  the  men  who  formed  that  pro- 
cessioH  ?  And  what  would  your  country  be,  what  would  be  the  United  Kingdom, 
what  would  this  empire  be,  if  the  men  of  their  class  could,  by  any  sudden  change, 
be  taken  from  amongst  us  ?  The  nation  would  dwindle  into  no  nation  at  all, 
and  those  men  wha  from  their  heights  of  power  and  wealth  look  down  upon 
the  multitude  whose  business  it  is  to  labour  and  obey  the  law,  and  yet  have 
no  share  in  making  that  law, — those  men  would  be  at  once  dethroned  from 
being  the  apparent  leaders  of  a  great  nation,  and  would  themselves,  incom- 
petent as  they  are,  have  to  descend  to  works  of  common  labour,  which  they  now 
despise.  There  was  one  thing  I  was  delighted  to  see  yesterday.  It  was  evident 
in  Birmingham  as  mufch  as  it  was  evident  here, — more  evident  in  Birmingham 
than  it  was  in  Manchester  and  in  Leeds, — :that  there  seemed  to  be  a  great  union 
of  all  classes  in  the  proceedings.  Employment  for  the  time  appeared  to  have 
ceased,  except  that  employment  which  was  the  business  of  the  day.  There 
seemed  to  be — I  may  be  speaking  from  inadequate  means  of  observation — but 
there  felt  to  me  throughout  yesterday  as  if  the  men  who  lived  in  the  great 
houses  around  us  had  a  sympathy  in  the  purposes  in  which  the  great  body  of 
the  people  were  engaged.  If  that  be  so,  it  augurs  well  for  the  cause  ;  and  I 
think  it  desirable  it  should  be  known  throughout  every  portion  of  the  kingdom, 
for  I  am  satisfied  that  tb^e  influence  of  yesterday's  proceedings  will  not  end  with 
yesterday ;  it  will  not  end  with  Glasgow  and  the  west  of  Scotland,  but  it  will  be 
felt  in  every  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom.  It  is  quite  clear  that  this  move- 
ment in  which  we  are  engaged  is  beginning  to  be,  and  has  already  assumed  the 
proportions  of  a  national  movement.  What  was  done  in  London  three  months 
ago  was  as  nothing  to  what  can'  be  done  in  London  now,  when  those  who  are 
leading  the  movement  undertake  to  set  it  in  motion  again.  Birmingham  was  all 
alive,  and  if  there  were  any  opposed  they  were  in  holes  and  corners,  out  of 
sight ;  but,  in  fact,  in  Birmingham  there  are  very  few  to  oppose,  and  1  must  say 
when  they  do  oppose,  they  do  it  with  a  moderation  and  an  absence  of  rancour 
that  I  have  scarcely  seen  in  any  other  part  of  the  kingdom.  In  Manchester 
there  was  a  downpour  of  rain,  as  we  say  in  Lancashire,  from  six  o'clock  in  the 


30 

morning  to  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  f  there  had  not  been  something 
as  robust  in  the  politics  as  there  is  in  the  health  and  character  of  Lancashire 
workiag  tnsn,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  have  had  on  'ftiat  day  atyr  gr^ftt 
demonstration  of  onrubazs.  In  Yorkshire,  those  who  saw  the  procession  and 
the  m33tin  *  say  there  was  .never  anything  like  it  in  the  \Vest  Biding  during  the 
memory  of  the  oldest  politician.  If  this  natter  his  assumed  a  national  cha- 
racter, as  I  believe  it  has,  miy  we  not  hope  that,  before  long,  it  may  produce 
some  groat  an.1  decisive  result?  I  am  going,  I  suppose  now,  within  a  fortnight 
from  this  time,  to  pay  a  visit  to  some,  I  'will  say,  like  our  chairman,  too  kind 
friends  of  mine  in  the  city  of  Dublin.  I  have  been  invited  to  attend  a  public 
banquet  and  be  the  guest  of  certain  persons  who  form  a  very  favourable  opinion 
of  my  political  career.  Irish  questions,  no  doubt,  will  be  discussed  more  than 
ffnestions,  as  we  should  say,  clearly  affecting  the  whole  empire  ;  but  I  believe  the 
•vvhole  empire  is  deeply  interested  in  what  we  commonly  call  "  Irish  questions." 
I  should  like  to  tell  the  Irish  people  that  there  is  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
people  of  Great  Britain,  whether  of  England  or  of  Scotland,  to  do  them  injustice. 
The  injustice  they  have  suffered  has  been  from  the  governing  classes  in  England, 
and  from  the  governing  classes  in  Ireland.  It  has  not  been  from  the  people  of  the 
United  Kingdom — and  the  more  speedily  and  the  more  entirely  the  nation  of  the 
three  kingdoms  is  admitted  to  its  fair  share  in  parliamentary  power,  the  more 
speedily  and  more  completely  will  justice  be  done  to  Ireland,  and  justice  also 
be  as  fully  done  and  secured  to  and  for  the  whole  people  of  the  United  King- 
dom. I  shall  say  no  more  but  to  tell  you  I  have  had  singular  pleasure  in  coming 
to  Glasgow  on  this  occasion  ;  but  I  am,  as  you  may  suppose,  always  very  much 
happier  the  morning  after  a  great  meeting  than  I  am  the  morning  before  it ;  for 
I  feel,  notwithstanding  no  little  practice  in  public  speaking,  and  no  little  fami- 
liarity with  the  subjects  to  be  discussed,  a  sense  of  a  very  heavy  responsibility 
which  I  cannot  shake  off.  I  have  been  placed,  in  connection  with  this  question, 
in  a  very  prominent  position,  altogether  unsought  for  by  me.  I  have  no  anxiety 
to  -be  a  leader  in  politics,  or  to  be  lionised  in  great  cities  ;  but  from  my  youth 
upwards  I  have  had  a  horror  and  a  hatred  of  that  which  is  unjust  to  the  people. 
It  was  that  feeling  that  led  me  to  join  one  of  whom  I  cannot  speak  without  a 
faltering  voice  in  that  great  labour  in  which  we  worked  so  long  together,  the 
abolition  of  the  monopoly  in  food,  and  now  if  I  am  engaged  more  prominently 
than  some  men  may  think  I  ought  to  be  in  this  question,  it  is  because  I  would 
wisk  to  join  my  countrymen  in  striking  down  monopoly  of  a  wider  influence,  and 
which,  when  it  is  gone,  ten  or  twenty  years  afterwards,  all  thoughtful  and  good 
men  hi  the  country  will  rejoice  at  as  much  as  they  now  rejoice  that  the  monopoly, 
the  stupid  and  ignorant  monopoly,  of  the  landowners  no  longer  limits  the  supply 
of  food  to  a  great  people. 


40 

SPEECHES    AT    DUBLIN. 


ON  tlio  30th  of  October  Mr.  Bright  was  entertained  at  a  Banquet 
in  the  Rotunda,  Dublin,  and  on  rising  to  respond  to  the  toast  of 
his  health,  the  hon.  gentleman  was  greeted  with  enthusiastic  cheers, 
which  continued  for  a  considerable  time,  the  entire  company 
standing,  and  the  ladies  in  the  gallery  waving  their  handkerchiefs. 
When  silence  was  restored,  Mr.  Bright  said  : 

Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen, — I  feel  myself  more  embarrassed  than 
I  can  well  describe,  at  the  difficult  but  still  honourable  position  in  which 
I  find  myself  to-night.  I  am  profoundly  moved  by  the  exceeding  and 
generous  kindness  with  which  you  have  received  me,  and  all  I  can  do  is 
to  thank  you  for  it,  and  to  say  how  grateful  to  my  heart  it  is  that  such  a 
number  as  I  see  before  me — I  will  say  of  my  countrymen — have  approved 
generally  of  the  political  course  which  I  have  pursued.  But  I  may  assure  you 
that  the  difficulty  of  this  position  is  not  at  all  of  my  seeking.  I  heard  during 
the  last  session  of  Parliament  that  if  I  was  likely  to  come  to  Ireland  during 
the  autumn,  it  was  not  improbable  that  I  should  be  asked  to  some  banquet  of 
this  kind  in  this  city.  I  had  an  intention  of  coming,  but  being  moved  by  this 
kindness  or  menace,  I  changed  my  mind,  and  spent  some  weeks  in  Scotland 
instead  of  Ireland.  When  I  found  from  the  newspapers  that  an  invitation  was 
being  signed,  asking  me  to  come  here,  I  wrote  to  my  honourable  friend,  Sir  John 
Gray,  to  ask  him  if  he  would  be  kind  enough  to  put  an  extinguisher  upon  the 
project,  inasmuch  as  I  was  not  intending  to  cross  the  Channel.  He  said  that 
the  matter  had  proceeded  so  far  that  it  was  impossible  to  interfere  with  it — that 
it  must  take  its  natural  course,  and  the  result  was  that  I  received  an  invitation 
signed,  I  think,  by  about  140  names,  amongst  whom  there  were  not  less,  I 
believe,  than  twenty-two  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Well,  as  you 
will  probably  imagine,  I  felt  that  this  invitation  was  of  that  nature 
that,  although  it  was  most  difficult  to  accede  to  it,  it  was  impossible  to 
refuse  it,  and  that  accounts  for  my  being  here  to-night,  and  is  a  simple 
explanation  of  what  has  taken  place.  I  said  amongst  the  signatures  were  the 
names  of  not  less  than  22  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  I  speak  with 
grief  when  I  say  that  one  of  our  friends  who  signed  that  invitation  is  no 
longer  with  us.  I  had  not  the  pleasure  of  a  long  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Dillon,  but  I  shall  take  this  opportunity  of  saying  that  during  the  last 
session  of  Parliament  I  formed  a  very  high  opinion  of  his  character.  There 
was  that  in  his  eye  and  in  the  tone  of  his  voice — in  his  manner  altogether, 
which  marked  him  for  an  honourable  and  a  just  man.  I  venture  to  say  that 
his  sad  and  sudden  removal  is  a  great  loss  to  Ireland.  I  believe  amongst  all 
her  worthy '  sons,  Ireland  has  had  no  worthier  and  no  nobler  son  than 
John  Blake  Dillon.  I  shall  not  be  wrong  if  I  assume  that  the  ground 
of  my  visit  to  Dublin  is  to  be  found  first  in  the  sympathy  which  I  have 
always  felt  and  expressed  for  the  condition,  and  for  the  wrongs,  and  for  the 
rights  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  and  probably  also  because  I  am  supposed,  in 


41 

sonic  degree,  to  represent  some  amount  of  the  opinion  in  England,  which  is 
also  favourable  to  the  true  interests  of  this  island.  The  Irish  question  is  a 
question  that  has  often  been  discussed,  and  yet  it  remains  at  this  day  as 
much  a  question  as  it  has  been  for  centuries  past.  The  Parliament  of  Kil- 
kenny, a  Parliament  that  sat  a  very  long  time  ago,  if  indeed  it  was 
a  Parliament  at  all — it  was  a  Parliament  that  sat  about  500  years  ago,  that 
I  believe  proposed  to  inflict  a  very  heavy  penalty  if  any  Irishman's  horse 
was  found  grazing  on  any  Englishman's  land,  and  it  was  a  Parliament  which 
left  on  record  a  question,  which  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to  consider  to- 
night— it  put  to  the  King  this  question,  "How  comes  it  to  pass  that  the 
King  was  never  the  richer  for  Ireland?"  We,  500  years  afterwards, 
venture  to  ask  this  question,  ' '  Why  is  it  that  the  Queen,  or  the  Crown,  or 
the  United  Kingdom,  or  the  Empire,  is  never  the  richer  for  Ireland," — and 
if  you  will  permit  me  I  will  try  to  give  you  as  clearly  as  I  can  something 
like  an  answer  to  that  very  old  question.  What  it  may  be  followed  by  is 
this,  How  is  it  that  we,  the  Imperial  Parliament,  cannot  act  so  as  to  bring 
about  in  Ireland  contentment  and  tranquillity,  and  a  solid  union  between 
Ireland  and  Great  Britain  ?  and  that  means  further,  how  can  we  improve 
the  condition  and  change  the  minds  of  the  people  of  Ireland  ?  Some  say,  I 
have  heard  many  who  say  it  in  England,  and  I  am  afraid  there  are 
Irishmen  also  who  would  say  it,  that  there  is  some  radical  defect  in 
the  Irish  character  which  prevents  the  condition  of  Ireland  being  so 
satisfactory  as  is  the  condition  of  England  and  of  Scotland. 
Now,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  whatever  there  is  that  is 
defective  in  any  portion  of  the  Irish  people  comes  not  from  their  race,  but 
from  their  history,  and  the  conditions  to  which  they  have  been  subjected. 
I  am  told  by  those  in  authority  that  in  Ireland  there  is  a  remarkable 
absence  of  crime.  I  have  heard  since  I  came  to  Dublin,  from  those  well 
acquainted  with  the  facts,  that  there  is  probably  no  great  city  in  the 
world — in  the  civilised  and  Christian  world — of  equal  population  with  the 
city  in  which  we  are  now  assembled,  where  there  is  so  little  crime 
committed.  And  I  find  that  that  portion  of  the  Irish  people  which  has 
found  a  home  in  the  United  States  has  in  the  period  of  sixteen  years — 
between  1848  and  ]  8C4  —  remitted  about  £13,000,000  sterling  to  their 
friends  and  relatives  in  Ireland.  I  am  bound  to  place  these  facts  in 
opposition  to  any  statements  that  I  hear  as  to  any  radical  defects  of  the 
Irish  character.  I  say  that  it  would  be  much  more  probable  that  the 
defect  lies  in  the  Government  and  in  the  law.  But  there  are  some  others 
who  say  that  the  great  misfortune  of  Ireland  is  in  the  existence  of  the 
noxious  race  of  political  agitators.  Well,  as  to  that  I  may  state,  that 
the  most  distinguished  political  agitators  that  have  appeared  during  the 
last  100  years  in  Ireland  are  Grattan  and  O'Connell,  and  I  should  say  that 
lie  must  be  either  a  very  stupid  or  a  very  base  Irishman  who  would  wish 
to  erase  the  achievements  of  Grattan  and  O'Connell  from  the  annals  of  his 
country.  But  some  say  (and  this  is  not  an  uncommon  thing) — some  say 
that  the  priests  of  the  popular  church  in  Ireland  have  been  the  cause  of 
much  discontent.  I  believe  there  is  no  class  of  men  in  Ireland  who  have  a 
•deeper  interest  in  a  prosperous  and  numerous  community  than  the  priests 


42 

of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  further,  I  believe  that  no  men  have  suffered 
more — have  suffered  more  I  mean,  in  mind  and  in  feeling,  from  witnessing 
the  miseries  and  the  desolation  which  during  the  last  century  (to  go  no 
further  back)  have  stricken  and  afflicted  the  Irish  people.  But  some  others 
say  that  there  is  no  ground  of  complaint,  because  the  laws  and  institutions  of 
Ireland  are,  in  the  main,  the  same  as  the  laws  and  institutfons  of  England 
and  Scotland.  They  say,  for  example,  that  if  there  be  an  Established 
Church  in  Ireland  there  is  one  in  England  and  one  in  Scotland,  and  thr.t 
Nonconformists  are  very  numerous  both  in  England  and  in  Scot- 
land ;  but  they  seem  to  forget  this  fact,  that  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land or  the  Church  in  Scotland  is  not  in  any  sense  a  foreign  church — 
that  it  has  not  been  imposed  in  past  times,  and.  is  not  maintained 
now  by  force  —  that  it  is  not  in  any  degree  the  symbol  of  con- 
quest, that  it  is  not  the  church  of  a  small  minority,  absorbing  the 
ecclesiastical  revenues  and  endowments  of  a  whole  kingdom;  and 
they  omit  to  remember  or  to  acknowledge  that  if  any  Government 
attempted  to  plant  by  force  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Scotland  or  the 
Catholic  Church  in  England,  the  disorders  and  discontent  which  have  pre- 
vailed in  Ireland  would  be  witnessed  with  tenfold  intensity  and  violence  in 
Great  Britain.  And  these  persons  whom  I  am  describing  also  say  that  the 
land  laws  in  Ireland  are  the  same  as  the  land  laws  in  England.  It  would 
be  easy  to  show  that  the  land  laws  in  England  are  bad  enough,  and  that 
but  for  the  outlet  of  the  population,  afforded  by  our  extraordinary  manufac- 
turing industry,  the  condition  of  England  would  in  all  probability  become 
quite  as  bad  as  the  condition  of  Ireland  has  been;  but  if  the  countries  differ 
with  regard  to  land  and  the  management  of  it  in  their  customs,  may  it  not  be 
reasonable  that  they  should  also  differ  in  their  laws  ?  In  Ireland  the  land- 
owner is  the  creature  of  conquest,  not  of  conquest  of  800  years  ago,  but  of 
conquest  completed  only  2(^0  years  ago  ;  and  it  may  be  well  for  us  to 
remember,  and  for  all  Englishmen  to  remember,  that  succeeding  that  transfer 
of  the  land  to  the  new  comers  from  Great  Britain,  there  followed  a  system 
of  law,  known  by  the  name  of  the  penal  code,  of  the  most  ingenious 
cruelty,  and  such  as,  I  believe,  has  never  in  modern  times  been  inflicted  on 
any  Christian  people.  Unhappily,  on  this  account,  the  wound  which  was 
opened  by  the  conquest  has  never  been  permitted  to  be  closed,  and  thus  we 
have  had  landowners  in  Ireland  of  a  different  race,  of  a  different  religion, 
and  of  different  ideas  from  the  great  bulk  of  the  people,  and  there  has  been 
a  constant  and  bitter  war  between  the  owners  and  occupiers  of  the  spil. 
Now,  up  to  this  point  I  suppose  that  even  the  gentlemen  who  were  dining 
together  the  other  evening  in  Belfast  would  probably  agree  with  me, 
because  what  I  have  stated  is  mere  matter  of  notorious  history  to  be  found 
in  every  book  which  has  treated  of  the  course  of  Irish  affairs  during  the 
last  two  hundred  years.  But  I  think  they  would  agree  with  me  even  further 
than  this.  They  would  say  that  Ireland  is  a  land  which  has  been  torn  by 
religious  factions,  and  torn  by  these  factions  at  least  in  the  North  as  much 
as  in  the  South;  and  I  think  they  would  be  doing  less  than  justice  to  the 
iAabitants  of  the  North  if  they  said  that  they  had  in  any  degree  come 
short  of  the  people  of  the  South  in  the  intensity  of  their  passionate 


43 

feelings  with  regard  to  their  church;      Bwt  Ireland  has  been  more  than  this 
— it  has  been  a  land  of  evictions — a  word  which,  I  suspect,  is  scarcely  known 
in  any  other  civilised  country.     It  is  a  country  from  which  thousands  of 
families  have  been  driven  by  the  will  of  the  landowners  and  the  power  of 
the  law.     It  is  a  country  where  have  existed,  to  a  great  extent,  those  dread 
tribunals    known  by  the  common  name  of  secret  societies,  by  which,  in 
the  pursuit  of  what  some  men  have  thought  to  be  justice,  thera  have  been 
committed  crimes  of  appalling  guilt  in  the  eye  of  the  whole  world.     It  is  a 
country,  too,  in  which,  and  it  is  the  only  Christian  country  of  which  it  may 
be  said  for  some  centuries  past — it  is  a  country  in  which  a  famine  of  tho 
most  desolating  character  has  prevailed  even  during  our  own  time.     I  think 
I  was  told  in  1849,  as  I  stood  in  the  burial  ground  at  Skibbereen,  that  at 
least  400  people  who  had  died  of  famine  were  buried  within  the  quarter  of 
an  acre  of  ground  on  which  I  was  then  looking.     It  is  a  country,  too,  from 
Which  there  has  been  a  greater  emigration  by  sea  within  a  given  time  than 
has  been  known  at  any  time  from  any  other  country  in  the  world.     It  is  a 
country  where  there  has  been,  for  generations  past,  a  general  sense  off  wrong, 
out  of  which  has  grown  a  state  of  chronic  insurrection  ;  and  at  this  very 
moment  when  I  speak,  the  general  safeguard  of  constitutional  liberty  is 
withdrawn,  and  we  meet  in  this  hall,  and  I  spsak  here  to-night,  rather  by 
the  forbearance  and  permission  of  the  Irish  executive  than  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  common  safeguards  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  of 
the  United  Kingdom.     I  venture  to  say  that  this  is  a  miserable  and 
a  humiliating  picture  to  draw  of  this  country.     Bear  in  mind  that  I  am  not 
speaking  of  Poland  suffering  under  the  conquest  of  Russia.     There  is  a 
gentleman  now  a  candidate  for  an  Irish  county,  who  is  very  great  upon  the 
wrongs  of  Poland  ;  but  I  have  found  him  always  in  the  House  of  Commons 
taking  sides  with  that  great  party  which  has  systematically  supported  the 
wrongs  of  Ireland.  I  am  not  speaking  about  Hungary, 'or  of  Venice  as  she  was 
under  the  rule  of  Austria,  or  of  the  Greeks  under  the  dominion  of  the  Turk, 
but  I  am  speaking  of  Ireland — part  of  the  United  Kingdom — part  of  that 
which  boasts  itself  to  be  the  most  civilised  and  the  most  Christian  nation  in 
the  world.     I  took  the  liberty  recently,   at  a  meeting  in  Glasgow,  to  say 
that  I  believed  it  was  impossible  for  a  class  to  govern  a  great  nation  wisely 
and  justly.     Now,  in  Ireland  there  has  been  a  field  in  which  all  the  principles 
of  the  Tory  party  have  had  their  complete  experiment  and  development. 
You  have  had  the  country  gentleinan|in  all  his  power.     You  have  had  any 
number  of  acts  6*f  Parliament  which  the  ancient  Parliament  of  Ireland,  or 
the  Parliament  of  the  UnitedJKingdom  could  give  him.     You  have  had  the 
Established  Church  supported|by  the  law,  even  to  the  extent,  not  many 
years  ago,  of  collecting  its  revenues  by  the  aid  of  military  force.     In  point 
of  fact,  I  believe  it  would  be  impossible^to  imagine  a  state  of  things  in  which 
the  principles  of  the  Tory  party  have    had  a  more  entire  and  complete 
opportunity  for  their  trial  than,they  have'had  within  the  limits  of  this  island. 
And  yet  what  has  happened  ?  %  This,  surely.     That  the  kingdom  has  been 
continually  weakened— that  the|harmony  of  the  empire  has  been  disturbed, 
and  that  the  mischief  has  not  been[confined  to  the  United  Kingdom,  but  has 
spread  to  the  colonies.     And  at  thisjmoment,  as  we  know  by  every  arrival 


4i 

from  the   United   States,   the  colony  of  Canada  is  exposed  to  danger  of 
invasion — that  it  is  forced  to  keep   on  foot   soldiers  which    it  otherwise 
would  not  want,  and  to  involve  itself  in  expenses  which  threaten  to  be 
ruinous  to  its  financial  condition,  and  all  that  it  may  defend  itself  from 
Irishmen  hostile  to  England,  who  are  settled  in  the  United  States.    In  fact, 
the  Government  of  Lord  Derby  at  this  moment  is  doing  exactly  that  which 
the  Government  of  Lord  North  did  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago — it  is  sending 
out  troops  across  the  Atlantic  to  fight  Irishmen  who  are  the  bitter  enemies 
of  England  on  the  American  continent.     Now,  I  believe  every  gentleman 
in  this  room  will  admit  that  all  that  I  have  said  is  literally  true.      And  if 
it  be  true,  what  conclusion  are  we  to  come  to  ?     Is  it  that  the  law  is  bad 
which  rules  in  Ireland  and  the  people  good,  or  that  the  law  is  good  and  the 
people  bad  ?     Now,  let  us,  if  we  can,  get  rid  for  a  moment  of  Episcopali- 
anism,   Presbyterianism,  Protestantism,  and  Orangeism  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  Catholicism,  Eomanism,  Ultramontanism  on  the  other, — let  us  for  a 
moment  get  beyond  all  these  "isms,"  and  try  if  we  can  discover  what  it  is 
that  is  the  matter  with  your  country.     I  shall  ask  you  only  to  turn  your 
eye  upon  two  points — the  first  is  the  Established  Church,  and  the  second  is 
the  tenure  of  land.    The  church  may  be  said  to  affect  the  soul  and.  sentiment 
of  the  country,  and  the  land  question  may  be  said  to  affect  the  means  of 
of  life  and  the  comforts  of  the  people.     Now,  I  shall  not  blame  the  bishops 
and  clergy  of  the  Established  Church.     There  may  be,  and  I  doubt  not 
there  are,  amongst  them  many  pious  and  devoted  men,  who  labour  to  the 
utmost  of  their  power  to  do  good  in  the  district  which  is  committed  to  their 
care ;  but  I  venture  to  say  this,  that  if  they  were  all  good  and  all  pious,  it 
would  not  in  a  national  point  of  view  compensate  for  this  one  fatal  error — 
the  error  of  their  existence  as  the  ministers  of  an  Established  Protestant 
Church  in  Ireland.     Every  man  of  them  is  necessarily  in  his  district  a 
symbol  of  the  supremacy  of  the  few  and  of  the  subjection  of  the  many ;  and 
although  the  amount  of  the  revenue  of  the  Established  Church  as  the  sum 
payable  by  the  whole  nation  may  not  be  considerable,  yet  bear  in  mind  that 
it  is  often  the  galling  of  the  chain  which  is  more  tormenting  than  the  weight 
of  it.     I  believe  that  the  removal  of  the  Established  Church  would  create  a 
new  political  and  social  atmosphere  in  Ireland — that  it  would  make  the 
people  feel  that  old  things  had  passed  away — that  all  things  had  become 
uew — that  an  Irishman  and  his  faith  were  no  longer'to  be  condemned  in  his 
own  country — and  that  for  the  first  time  the  English  people  and  the  English 
Parliament  intended  to  do  full  justice  to  Ireland.      Now,    leaving  the 
Established  Church,  I  come  to  the  question  of  the  land.     I  have  said  that 
the  ownership  of  the  land  in  Ireland  came  originally  from  conquest  and 
from  confiscation,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  there  was  created  a  great  gulf 
between  the  owner  and  the  occupier,  and  from  that  time  to  this  doubtless 
there   has   been  wanting  that   sympathy   which  exists  to  a  large  extent 
in  Great  Britain,  and  that  ought  to  exist  in  every  country.     I  am  told — 
you  can  answer  it  if  I  am  wrong — that  it  is  not  common  in  Ireland  now  to 
gives  leases  to  tenants,  especially  to  Catholic  tenants.     If  that  be  so,  then 
the  security  for  the  property  of  the  tenant  rests  only  upon  the  good  feeling 
and  favour  of  the  owner  of  the  land,  for  the  laws,  as  we  know,  have  been 


made  by  the  landowners,  and  many  propositions  for  the  advantage  of  the 
tenants  have  unfortunately  been  too  little  considered  by  Parliament.  The 
result  is  that  you  have  bad  farming,  bad  dwelling-houses,  bad  temper,  and 
everything  bad  connected  with  the  occupation  and  cultivation  of  land  in 
Ireland.  One  of  the  results — a  result  the  most  appalling — is  this,  that 
your  population  are  fleeing  from  your  country  and  seeking  a  refuge  in  a 
distant  land.  On  this  point  I  wish  to  refer  to  a  letter  which  I  received  a, 
few  days  ago  from  a  most  esteemed  citizen  of  Dublin.  He  told  me  that  he 
believed  that  a  very  large  portion  of  what  he  called  the  poor,  amongst 
Irishmen,  sympathised  with  any  scheme  or  any  proposition  that  was 
adverse  to  the  Imperial  Government.  He  said  further,  that  the  people  here 
are  rather  in  the  country  than  of  it,  and  that  they  are  looking  more  to 
America  than  they  are  looking  to  England.  I  think  there  is  a  good  deal 
in  that.  When  we  consider  how  many  Irishmen  have  found  a  refuge  in 
America,  I  do  not  know  how  we  can  wonder  at  that  statement.  You  will 
recollect  that  when  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophet  prayed  in  his  captivity  he 
prayed  with  his  window  opened  towards  Jerusalem.  You  know  that  the 
followers  of  Mahommed,  when  they  pray,  turn  their  faces  towards  Mecca. 
When  the  Irish  peasant  asks  for  food,  and  freedom,  and  blessing,  his  eye 
follows  the  setting  sun  ;  the  aspirations  of  his  heart  reach  beyond  the  wide 
Atlantic  and  in  spirit  he  grasps  hands  with  the  great  Republic  of  the 
West.  If  this  be  so,  I  say,  then,  that  the  disease  is  not  only  serious,  but 
it  is  even  desperate  ;  but  desperate  as  it  is,  I  believe  there  is  a  certain 
remedy  for  it,  if  the  people  iand  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom 
are  willing  to  apply  it.  Now,  if  it  were  possible,  would  it  not  be  worth 
while  to  change  the  sentiments  and  improve  the  condition  of  tho  Irish 
cultivators  of  the  soil  ?  If  we  were  to  remove  the  Stats  Church  there  would 
still  be  a  church,  but  it  would  not  be  a  supremacy  church.  The  Catholics 
of  Ireland  have  no  idea  of  saying  that  Protestantism  in  its  various  forma 
shall  not  exist  in  their  island.  There  would  still  be  a  church,  but  it  would 
be  a  free  church  of  a  section  of  a  free  people.  I  will  not  go  into  details 
about  the  change.  Doubtless  every  mail  would  say  that  the  present 
occupants  of  the  livings  should,  during  their  lifetime,  not  be  disturbed  ; 
but  if  the  principle  of  the  abolition  of  the  State  Church  were  once 
fixed  and  accepted,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  arrange  the  details 
that  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  people  of  Ireland.  Now,  who 
objects  to  this  ?  The  men  who  are  in  favour  of  supremacy,  and  the 
men  who  have  a  fanatical  hatred  of  what  they  call  Popery.  To  honest  and 
good  men  01  the  Protestant  Church  and  of  the  Protestant  faith  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  to  fear  this  change.  What  has  the  voluntary  system  done 
in  Scotland  ?  What  has  it  done  amongst  the  Nonconformists  of  England  ? 
W hat  has  it  done  amongst  the  population  of  Wales  ?  and  what  has  it  done 
amongst  the  Catholic  population  of  your  own  Ireland  ?  In  my  opinion 
the  abolition  of  the  Established  Church  would  give  Protestantism  itself 
another  chance.  I  believe  there  has  been  in  Ireland  no  other  enemy  ot 
Protestantism  so  injurious  as  the  Protestant  State  Establishment.  It  has 
been  loaded  for  200  years  with  the  sins  of  bad  government  and  bad  laws, 
and  whatever  may  have  been  the  beauty  and  the  holiness  of  its  doctrine  or 


46 

of  its  professors,  it  has  not  been  able  to  hold  its  ground,  loaded  as  it  has 
been  by  the  sins  of  a  bad  government.     One  effect  of  the  Established  Church 
has  been  this,  the  making  Catholicism  in  Ireland  not  only  a  faith  but  a 
patriotism,  for  it  was  not  likely  that  any  member  of  the  Catholic  Church 
would  incline  in  the  slightest  degree  to  Protestantism  so  long  as  it  presented 
itself  to  his  eyes  as  a  wrong  doer  and  full  of  injustice  in  connection  with  the 
.  t  of  his  country.     But  now,  if  honest  Protestantism  has  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  change  that  I  would  recommend,  what  has  the  honest 
jwner  to  fear  ?     The  history  of  Europe  and  America  for  the  last  one 
hundred  years  r.ifords  scarcely  any  picture  more  painful  than  that  which  i.s 
led  by  the  landowners  of  this  kingdom.     The  Irish  landowner  has  been 
different  from  every  other  landowner,  for  the  bulk  of  his  land  has  only  been 
about  half  cultivated,  'and  he  has  had  to  collect  his  rents  by  a  process 
approaching  the  evils  of  civil  war.     His  property  has  been  very  insecure — 
the  sale  of  it  sometimes  has  been  rendered  impossible.     The  landowner 
hiinsslf  has  often  been  hated  by  those  who  ought  to  have  loved  him.     He 
oen  banished  from  his  ancestral  home  by  terror,   and  not  a  few  have 
lost  their  lives  without  the  sympathy  of  those  who  ought  to  hr.ve  been  their 
protectors  and  their  friends.        I  would  like  to   ask,    what  can  be    much 
worse  than  this  ?    If  in  this  country  50  years  ago,  as  in  Prussia,  there  had 
arisen  statesmen  who  would  have  taken  one-third  or  one-half  the  land  from 
the  landowners  of  Ireland,  and  made  it  over  to  their  tenants,  I  believe  that 
the  Irish  landowner,  great  as  would  have  been  the  injustice  of  which  he 
ruielit  have   complained,    would  in  all  probability  have  been  richer  and 
hapuier  than  he  has  been.     Now,  what  is  the  first  remedy  which  you  would 
propose  ?     Clearly  this — that  which  is  the  most  easily  applicable  and  which 
would  most  speedily  touch  the  condition  of  the  country.     It  is  this — that 
the  property  which  the  tenant  shall  invest  or  create  in  hio  farm  shall  be 
secured  to  the  tenant  by  law.     I  believe  that  if  Parliament  were  fairly  to 
enact  this  it  would  make  a  change  in  the  whole  temper  of  the  country.     I 
recollect  in  the  year   1849  being  down  in   the   county   of  "VVesford.     I 
called   at    the    house    of    an    old    farmer    of  the   name  of  Stafford,  who 
lived   in  a  very    good   house,    the   best    farmhouse,  I   think,  that  I  had 
seen  since  leaving   Dublin.     Ke    lived   on  his  own   farm,    which  he  had 
bought  fifteen  years  before.     The  house  was  a  house  which  he  had  himself 
built.     He  was  a  venerable  old  man,  and  we  had  some  very  interesting  con- 
versation with  him.     I  asked  how  it  was  he  had  so  good  a  house  ?    Ke  sak- 
the  farm  was  his  own,     and  the  house  was  his  own,   and,  as  no  man 
could  disturb  him,  he  had  made  it  a  much  better  house  than  was  common  for 
the  farmers  of  Ireland.    I  said  to  him,  "If  all  the  farmers  of  Ireland  had  the 
same  security  for  the  capital  they  laid  out  on  their  farms,  what  would  be  the 
the  result  ?  "     The  old  man  almost  sprang  out  of  his  chair,  and  said — "  Sir, 
if  you  will  give  us  that  encouragement,   we  will  bate  the  hunger  out  of 
Ireland."     It  is  said  that  all  this  must  be  left  to  contract  between  the 
landlord  and  the  tenant ;  but  the  public,  which  may  be  neither  landlord 
nor  tenant,  has  a  great  interest  in  this  question  ;  and  I  maintain  that  the 
interests  of  the  public  require  that  Parliament  should  secure  to  the  tenant  the 
property  which  he  has  invested  in  his  farm.     But  I  would  not  stop  here. 


47 

There  is  another,  accl  what  I  should  call  a  more  permanent  and  far-reaching 
remedy  for  the  evils  of  Ireland,  and  those  persons  who  stickle  so  much  for 
political  economy  I  hope  will  follow  me  in  this.  The  great  evil  of  Ireland 
I  j  this — that  the  Irish  people — the  Irish  nation — are  dispossessed  of  the 
soil,  and  what  we  ought  to  do  is  to  provide  for,  and  aid  in,  their  restoration 
to  it  by  all  mersures  of  justice.  "Why  should  we  tolerate  in  Ireland  the 
law  of  primogeniture  ?  Why  should  we  tolerate  the  system  of  entails  ?  Why 
should  the  object  of  the  law  be  to  accumulate  land  in  great  masses  in  few 
hands,  and  to  make  it  almost  impossible  for  persons  of  small  means,  and 
tenant  farmers,  to  become  possessors  of  land  ?  If  you  go  to  other  countries 
— for  example,  to  Norway,  to  Denmark,  to  Holland,  to  Belgium,  to  France, 
to  Germany,  to  Italy,  or  to  the  United  States,  you  will  find  that  in  all  these 
Countries  those  laws  of  which  I  complain  have  been  abolished,  and  the  land 
:  j  just  as  free  to  buy  and  sell,  and  hold  and  cultivate,  as  any  other  descrip- 
tion of  property  in  the  kingdom.  No  doubt  your  Landed  Estates  Court  and 
your  Record  of  Titles  Act  were  good  measures,  but  they  were  good  because 
they  were  in  the  direction  that  I  want  to  travel  further  in.  But  I  would 
go  further  than  that ;  I  would  deal  with  the  question  of  absenteeism.  I 
am  not  going  to  propose  to  tax  absentees  ;  but  if  iny  advice  were  taken,  we 
should  have  a  Parliamentary  commission  empowered  to  buy  up  the  large 
•3  in  Ireland  belonging  to  the  English  nobility,  for  the  purpose  of 
ig  them  on  easy  terms  to  the  occupiers  of  the  farms  and  to  the 
:'oy  of  Ireland.  Now,  let  me  be  fairly  understood.  I  am  not  pro- 
y  to  tax  absentees  ;  I  am  not  proposing  to  take  any  of  their  property 
them  ;  but  I  propose  this,  that  a  Parliamentary  commission  should  be 
empowered  to  treat  for  the  purchase  of  those  large  estates  with  the  view  of 
;;  them  to  the  tenantry  of  Ireland.  Now,  here  are  some  of  them — the 
present  Prime  Minister  Lord  Derby,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Fitzwilliam, 
Larquis  of  Hertford,  the  Marquis  of  Bath,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  the 
Duiie  of  Devonshire,  and  many  others.  They  have  estates  in  Ireland ; 
many  of  them,  I  dare  say,  are  just  as  well  managed  as  any  estates  in 
the  country ;  but  what  you  want  is  to  restore  to  Ireland  a  middle- 
class  proprietary  of  the  soil ;  and  I  venture  to  say  that  if  these  estates 
could  be  purchased  and  could  be  sold  out  farm  by  farm  to  the  tenant 
occupiers  in  Ireland,  that  it  would  be  infinitely  better  in  a  conservative  sense, 
that  they  should  belong  to  great  proprietors  living  out  of  the  country. 
I  have  said  that  the  disease  is  desperate,  and  that  the  remedy  must  be 
king.  I  assert  that  the  present  system  of  Government  with  regard  to 
the  church  and  with  regard  to  the  land  has  failed  disastrously  in  Ireland. 
Under  it  Ireland  has  become  an  object  of  commiseration  to  the  whole 
world  and  a  discredit  to  the  United  Kingdom,  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 
It  is  a  land  of  many  sorrows.  Men  fight  for  supremacy,  and  call  it  Pro- 
testantism ;  they  fight  for  evil  and  bad  laws,  and  they  call  it  acting  for  the 
defence  of  property.  Now,  are  there  no  good  men  in  Ireland  of  those  who 
are  generally  opposed  to  us  in  politics — are  there  none  who  can  rise  above 
the  level  of  party  ?  If  there  be  such,  1  wish  my  voice  might  reach  them. 
I  have  often  asked  myself  whether  patriotism  is  dead  in  Ireland  ?  Cannot 
all  the  people  of  Ireland  see  that  the  calamities  of  their  country  are  the 


creatures  of  the  law,  and  if  that  be  so,  just  lawi  can  only  remove  these 
calamities.  Xow,  if  Irishmen  were  united — if  your  105  members  were  for 
the  most  part  agreed,  you  might  do  almost  anything  that  you  liked — you 
might  do  it  even  in  the  present  Parliament ;  but  if  you  are  disunited,  then 
I  know  not  how  you  can  gain  anything  from  a  Parliament  created 
as  the  Imperial  Parliament  is  now.  The  class  that  rules  in  Britain 
•will  hear  your  cry  as  it  has  heard  it  before,  and  will  pay  no  attention  to- 
it.  They  will  see  your  people  leaving  your  shores,  and  they  will  think  it 
no  calamity  to  the  country.  They  know  that  they  have  force  to  suppress- 
insurrection,  and,  therefore,  you  can  gain  nothing  from,  their  fears.  What, 
then,  is  your  hope  ?  It  is  in  a  better  Parliament,  representing  fairly  the 
United  Kingdom — the  movement  which  is  now  in  force  in  England  and 
Scotland,  and  which  is  your  movement  as  much  as  ours.  If  there  wera 
109  more  members,  the  representatives  of  large  and  free  constituencies,  then 
your  cry  would  be  heard,  and  the  people  would  give  you  that  justice  which 
a  class  has  so  long  denied  you.  The  great  party  that  is  now  in  power— the 
Tory  party — denies  that  you  have  any  just  cause  of  complaint.  In  a  speech 
delivered  the  other  day  in  Belfast,  much  was  said  of  the  enforcement  of  the 
law ;  but  there  was  nothing  said  about  any  change  or  amendment  in  the 
law.  With  this  party  terror  is  their  only  speciiic,  and  they  have  no  con- 
fidence in  allegiance  except  where  there  is  no  power  to  rebel.  Now,  I  differ 
from  these  men  entirely.  I  believe  that  at  the  root  of  a  general  discontent 
there  is  in  all  countries  a  general  grievance  and  general  suffering.  The  sur- 
face of  society  is  not  incessantly  disturbed  without  a  cause.  I  recollect  in 
the  poem,  of  the  greatest  of  Italian  poets,  he  tells  us  that  as  he  saw  in  vision 
the  Stygian  lake,  and  stood  upon  its  banks,  he  observed  the  constant  com- 
motion upon  the  surface  of  the  pool,  and  his  good  instructor  and  guide 
explained  to  him  the  cause  of  it — 

"  This,  too,  for  certain  know,  that  underneath 
Ths  water  d~ells  a  multitude,  whose  sigh.-; 
Into  these  bubbles  make  the  surface  heave, 
As  thine  eye  tells  thee  wheresoe'er  it  turn." 

And  I  say  in  Ireland  for  generations  back,  that  the  misery  and  the  v.Tong,? 
of  the  people  have  made  then-  sign,  and  have  found  a  voice  in  constant 
insurrection  and  disorder.  I  have  said  that  Ireland  is  a  country  of  many 
wrongs  and  of  many  sorrows.  Her  past  lies  almost  all  in  shadow.  Her 
present  is  full  of  anxiety  and  peril.  Her  future  depends  on  the  power  of 
her  people  to  substitute  equality  and  justice  for  supremacy,  and  a  generous 
patriotism  for  the  spirit  of  faction.  In  the  effort  now  making  in  Great 
Britain  to  create  a  free  representation  of  the  people  you  have  the  deepest 
interest.  The  people  never  wish  to  suffer,  and  they  never  wish  to  inflict 
injustice.  They  have  no  sympathy  with  the  wrongdoer,  whether  in  Great 
Britain  or  in  Ireland ;  and  when  they  are  fairly  represented  in  the 
Imperial  Parliament,  as  I  hope  they  will  one  day  be,  they  will  speedily  give 
an  effective  and  final  answer  to  that  old  question  of  the  Parliament  of 
Kilkenny — "  How  comes  it  to  pass  that  the  King  has  never  been  the  richer 
for  Ireland."  (The  honourable  gentleman  resumed  his  seat  amid  the  most 
enthusiastic  demonstrations  of  applause. ) 


49 


0x  the  following  day  (Wednesday)  Mr.  Bright  received  a  deputation 
fimom  the  Cork  Farmers'  Club,  by  whom  he  was  presented  with  an 
address  thanking  him  for  his  services  to  Ireland  and  for  his  efforts 
to  improve  the  condition  of  the  occupiers  of  the  land.  In  acknow- 
ledging the  address,  Mr.  Bright  said  : — 

I  am  in  a  much  greater  difficulty  than  I  should  be  if  I  had  3,000  or 
4, 000  people  to  speak  to  on  an  occasion  of  this  kind.  I  observe  in  the 
second  paragraph  of  the  address  which  you  have  kindly  brought,  that  you 
refer  to  supposed  services  which  I  have  rendered  to  the  cause  of  humanity 
.-nil  freedom.  The  fact  is,  I  feel  what  I  suppose  everybody  feels  who  is 
honestly  engaged  in  public  life — that  after  a  good  deal  of  work,  of  many 
years  of  labour,  very  little  has  been  done,  for  the  world  seems  to  move  on 
very  slowly,  and  what  any  man  can  do  to  make  it  move  appears  to  be  very 
little.  But  I  have  always  had  the  opinion  that  a  people  are  very  much 
what  their  laws  make  them.  I  entirely  disbelieve  those  theories  which 
assume  that  it  does  not  matter  very  much  what  kind  of  laws  you  have — 
that,  after  all,  everything  depends  on  a  man's  self.  A  great  deal  depends 
on  a  man's  self,  but  a  great  deal  depends  on  the  laws;  and  I  think,  if  we 
trace  history  back  and  look  over  the  countries  we  know  something  of,  we 
shall  find  that  the  people  are  in  the  main  what  their  laws  and  institutions 
make  them.  Now,  my  mind,  from  a  very  young  age,  has  led  me  always  to 
a  feeling  that  laws  should  be  equal  and  should  be  just;  that  all  the  people 
living  in  a  country  have  an  equal  right  to  be  considered  and  well  treated  by 
the  institutions  and  laws  under  which  they  live.  In  this  country, 
uorc  perhaps  than  in  almost  any  other  country  in  Europe,  that  has  not 
"been  the  principle  on  which  the  government  has  been  conducted,  because  it 
is  quite  clear  that  the  laws  have  been  made  until  recently  by  a  party,  or 
rather  for  the  supremacy  of  a  party  more  than  for  the  whole  people;  and  as 
regards  the  land,  which  is  the  question  to  which  you  particularly  refer, 
there  can  be  no  kind  of  doubt  of  this,  that  the  laws  have  been  absolutely 
the  product  of  the  selfishness  and  ignorance  of  the  landed  proprietors,  and 
l>y  no  means  the  product  of  the  general  intelligence  of  all  classes  in  this 
country.  It  is  the  same  to  a  great  extent  in  England,  where,  as  Mr. 
Murphy  knows  perfectly  well,  in  the  House  of  Commons  there  are  questions 
which  you  can  discuss  with  an  expectation  that  they  will  be  fairly  consi- 
dered; but  if  you  come  to  any  question  connected  with  the  land,  with  the 
supremacy  of  that  particular  property  in  the  country,  argument  is  of  no 
avail  whatever,  and  the  slightest  tendency  to  what  I  would  call  intelligence 
•suii  justice  with  regard  to  that  is  met  by  the  most  determined  opposition 
}>y  the  great  landowning  classes  in  the  House.  Of  course,  there  are  many 
admirable  exceptions  there,  as  there  are  here;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  great 
weight  of  that  party  and  class  is  directed  against  any  wise  change  in  regard 
to  tli.}  laws  affecting  property  in  land.  Now,  twenty  years  ago,  they 
we  were  going  to  ruin,  them  when  we  were  proposing  to  allow 
™  fi'co  of  duty;  and  I  believe  there  were 

D 


50 

many  of  them  who  did  absolutely  believe  that  their  estates  would  be 
of  no  value,  and  that,  as  far  as  landowning  went  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  the  world  was  about  coming  to  an  end.  They  find,  now,  they 
have  got  rid  of  all  the  odium  of  that  system,  and  at  the  same  time  they 
have  not  got  rid  of  their  land,  but  their  land  is  of  more  value  than  it  was 
before.  Certainly  in  England  farmers  are  in  a  more  satisfactory  position 
than  they  were  before.  The  whole  tone  of  society  in  England  is  wonder- 
fully improved  by  the  change  which  took  place  in  184C.  I  believe  that,  if 
in  England  and  in  Ireland  the  laws  of  political  economy  were  applied  to 
land,  we  should  find  just  as  great  a  change  from  this  point  forward  with 
regard  to  matters  which  are  influenced  by  laws  affecting  laud,  as  we  have 
found  in  past  tunes  by  the  abolition  of  the  laws  which  prevented  the  impor- 
tation of  corn.  I  remember  my  lamented  friend,  Mr.  Cobden,  who  was  not 
likely  to  undervalue  the  effect  of  free  trade  in  corn,  saying,  on  more  tlir.n 
one  occasion,  that  the  men  who  hereafter  would  entirely  free  the  land — 
place  the  laws  with  regard  to  land  on  a  just  and  satisfactory  footing — would 
at  least  confer  as  great  a  benefit  upon  the  people  as  he  and  those  of  tliat 
former  agitation  had  been  able  to  confer,  by  the  success  of  our  movement. 
He  was  no  mean  judge  of  such  a  matter,  and  his  opinion  is  worth  taking 
note  of,  for  he  was  not  a  man  of  violent  party  feeling  at  all,  but  judged  tV. 
question,  perhaps,  with  a  dispassionateness  and  intelligence  which 
nsver  been  exceeded  by  any  public  man  among&t  us.  Now,  there  is  this 
difficulty  in  discussing  the  whole  Irish  question.  The  great  Church  party 
is  the  Tory  party.  The  boundaries  which  mark  out  the  limits  of  tlio 
Established  Church  are  almost  the  boundaries  which  mark  out  the  limit ;  ol 
tha  Tory  party.  They  think  that  if  the  Irish  Church  were  got  rid  of — if 
the  voluntary  principle  were  established  as  the  universal  practice  in  Ireland 
— that  principle  would  by-and-by  cross  the  Channel,  and  raise  an  equal 
contest  to  be  settled  in  like  manner  in  Great  Britain;  and  although  if  you 
were  at  the  Antipodes  (I  am  speaking  of  the  church  as  a  political  institu- 
tion) you  might  sweep  it  off  the  face  of  the  earth  and  there  would  be  no 
tears  shed  in  the  House  of  Commons;  yet  being  so  near  home,  they  have  no 
doubt  a  great  dread  that  the  same  thing  would  be  asked  for  and  done  here- 
after in  England.  And  so  with  regard  to  land  in  a  degree  not  less  obvious. 
They  think  that  the  concession  of  any  measure  of  tenant  right  or  security 
for  a  tenant  for  his  improvements,  would  be  followed  by  a  coercive  move- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  tenants  in  England  and  Scotland ;  and  in  England 
and  Scotland  the  tenantry  are  so  powerful,  that  if  they  once  put  their 
heads  in  one  direction  there  is  no  possibility  of  withstanding  them. 
They  are  much  more  powerful  than  the  tenants  are  here,  because  you,  acting 
alone,  have  to  act  upon  a  great  and  powerful  body  in  London.  If  you  had 
a  parliament  in  College  Green,  clearly  the  tenantry  of  Ireland,  with  the 
present  feeling  in  Ireland,  would  be  able  to  force  that  parliament  to  any 
measure  of  justice  they  desired  ;  but  as  you  have  to  deal  with  a  great  parlia- 
ment sitting  at  London,  all  the  clamour  you  make,  the  demands  you  may 
urge  from  this  side  of  the  Channel,  come  with  a  very  feeble  effect  in  London, 
especially  as  it  can  only  be  represented  by  about  one  hundred  members,  and 
of  those  it  unfortunately  happens  that  a  considerable  number  are  not  wil 


51 

to  support  the  demands  that  are  made.  But  if,  in  England  the  tenantry, 
and  in  Scotland  the  tenant  farmers — the  most  capable  and  most  intelligent 
agriculturists  perhaps  in  the  world — if  they  were  to  join  in  favour  of 
measures,  such  as  measures  hostile  to  the  game  laws,  hostile  to  any  injustice 
which  is  supposed  to  exist  with  regard  to  the  improvement  of  the  tenants, 
it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  the  Parliament  to  resist  their  demands. 
You  see,  therefore,  the  great  difficulty  you  have  to  contend  with.  You 
have  to  wrest  your  rights  from  a  Parliament  sitting  in  London,  to  which  you 
send  105  members.  Perhaps  half  are  not  in  favour  of  yoxir  rights,  and, 
therefore,  the  50  who  are  so  are  lost  in  the  600  they  find  there,  and  the 
effort  on  the  part  of  your  members  to  do  anything  is  one  'of  the  most  dis- 
heartening things  that  any  representative  of  the  people  can  have  to  do.  I 
have,  since  I  have  been  in  Parliament,  which  is  now  23  years,  heard  a 
hundred  times,  nay,  much  oftener,  blame  attached  to  the  Irish  members  for 
the  little  they  do  there.  I  believe  that  at  this  moment  the  Irish  Liberal 
members  are  the  most  respectable,  and  the  most  respected  and  influential  of 
all  the  Irish  Liberal  members  that  have  sat  in  Parliament  for  the  last  2.'J 
years.  That  is  my  opinion.  I  think  it  is  admitted  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
universally,  that  the  Irish  Liberal  members  of  this  Parliament  are  not 
inferior,  but  are  superior  to  the  Irish  Liberal  members  that  sat  in  former 
Parliaments  during  the  last  25  years ;  but,  notwithstanding  that,  and  although 
I  think  they  have  a  corresponding  increase  of  influence,  yet  it  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  things  in  the  world  for  fifty  men,  acting  amongst  600  men, 
some  hundreds  of  miles  from  those  whom  they  represent,  to  work  up  any 
question  which  may  be  against  the  prejudices  and  sympathies  of  the  600 
amongst  whom  they  are  acting,  and,  therefore,  Irish  constituencies,  whilst 
they  should  make  no  allowance  in  favour  of  those  members  who  are  not 
honest  towards  them  and  do  not  do  their  duty,  yet  for  those  who  are  honest 
and  do  their  duty,  they  should  make  allowance.  They  have  difficulties  in 
the  Parliament  in  London  which  are  vastly  greater  than  the  difficulties  of  an 
English  member,  or  than  those  the  Irish  members  would  find  if  their 
Parliament  was  sitting  in  this  country.  Now,  what  can  be  done  with  regard 
to  this  question  ?  I  say  I  don't  know  that  I  can  do  much.  1  have  always 
given  what  support  I  could  to  any  proposition  that  appeared  to  me  reason- 
able and  right  on  this  question  in  Parliament.  During  the  last  session  we  had 
the  great  advantage  of  the  assistance  of  a  most  eminent  man,  the  member  for 
Westminster,  Mr.  J.  Stuart  Mill.  He  made  an  admirable  speech  in  favour  of 
tenant  improvement,  and  a  speech  which  I  have  no  doubt  had  a  considerable 
effect  on  the  House  ;  but  I  trust  more  to  two  things  than  to  any  others  in 
regard  to  this  question.  The  first  is  the  necessities  of  party  if  this  Govern- 
ment goes  out,  which  is  not  a  thing  impossible,  and  is  a  thing, 
probably  to  be  desired.  Another  Government  coming  in  will  no 
doubt  be  under  a  distinct  pledge  to  endeavour  to  settle  this  land  question 
upon  some  sensible  and  just  arrangement,  and  from  that  something  may  be 
gained  ;  but  I  believe  what  we  have  most  to  rely  upon  is  the  hope  that 
before  long  we  shall  have  a  better  representation.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
world  more  certain  than  this,  that  if  you  call  a  meeting  in  any  part  of  Great 
Britain  where  you  have  got  a  fair  average  of  middle  class  people  or  working 


52 

class  people,  and  you  will  state  to  tlic:n  in  such  a  manner  as  I  have  been 
accustomed  to — state  with  any  degree  of  conciseness  and  fairness  what  you 
want  in  this  respect,  — I  believe  you  will  not  find  a  sensible  .man  to  dissent 
from  the  proposition  that  these  questions  are  questions  of  great  importance, 
and  ought  to  be  entertained  and  adjusted  by  the  Government  and  Par- 
liament. And,  therefore,  if  the  time  should  come — and  I  hope  it  is  not  far 
distant, — that  the  people  are  let  in  and  that  Parliament  is  more  popular,  if 
you  like,  more  democratic,  the  complaints  made  from  this  side  of  the 
Channel  will  be  listened  to  there  with  more  attention,  and  your  100  members, 
or  so  many  of  them  as  may  be  in  favour  of  justice  to  Ireland,  will  find  an 
increased  and  increasing  power  there  to  sympathise  with  them,  and  bring 
these  questions  to  some  wise  and  just  arrangement.  I  don't  know  that  I 
have  any  more  to  say.  I  am  very  sensible  of  your  kindness,  and  it  appears 
to  me  almost  unreasonable  that  any  of  the  citizens  of  Cork  should  come  so 
far  on  this  occasion  and  address  me  in  the  manner  you  have  done.  The 
Irish  question  has  been  to  me  one  of  great  interest  from  my  earliest  con- 
nection with  public  life.  I  knew  Mr.  O'Connell  with  a  certain  intimacy, 
and  when  I  was  a  very  young  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  I  often,  if 
I  found  an  opportunity,  sat  by  him,  for  I  found  his  conversation  not  only 
very  amusing  but  very  instructive.  He  knew  everybody,  and  almost  every- 
thing, and  his  comments  on  all  that  passed  were  very  pleasant  to  listen  to, 
fnd  often  very  informing.  I  don't  know  how — whether  it  is  from  a  natural 
love  of  what  is  just  or  not — but  I  always  had  a  great  sympathy  with  the 
Irish  people  and  Irish  questions,  and  as  long  as  I  remain  in  Parliament,  of 
in  public  life,  or  in  life  at  all,  and  am  capable  of  thinking,  I  believe  I  shall 
be  of  opinion  that  we  in  this  generation  do  owe  it  to  ourselves,  and  owe  it 
to  Ireland,  to  make  such  amends  as  we  can  for  an  amount  of  neglect,  and 
cruelty,  and  injustice  committed  in  the  past,  such  as  I  think  no  civilised  or 
Christian  nation,  has  ever  inflicted  on  another  Christian  nation.  I  thank  you 
most  sincerely  for  your  great  kindness  to  me,  and  I  hope  you  may  rely  upon 
it  that  whatever  I  have  done  from  that  sympathy  in  past  times,  I  shall  not 
withhold  in  the  future.  Only  you  must  not  exaggerate  what  I  can'  do  or 
what  anybody  else  can  do ;  but  if  you  get  your  members  to  unite  cordially 
with  the  really  Liberal  party  which  is  every  day  growing  in  England,  I 
hope  by  and  by  you  will  have  gained  something.  If  we  regret  the  dark- 
ness of  the  past  of  Ireland,  we  may  do  something  to  make  us  hope  for  a 
brighter  and  pleasantcr  prospect  for  the  future. 


ON  the  2nd  of  November  Mr.  Bright  attended  a  meeting  of  the 
Working  Men  of  Dublin,  in  the  Theatre  of  the  Mechanics'  Institution, 
James  Haughton,  Esq.,  in  the  Chair.  An  address  of  welcome  to 
Mr.  Bright  was  presented  to  him,  amid  loud  and  general  cheering. 
The  address  expressed  the  thanks  of  the  working  men  of  Ireland  to 
Mr.  Bright,  and  stated  that  the  Irish  people  had  no  hope  of  relie 
from  an  English  House  of  Commons  as  at  present  constituted. 
Mr.  Bright,  in  acknowledging  the  address,  said : — 

When  I  came  to  your  city  I  was  asked  if  I  would  attend  a  public  meet- 
ing on  the  question  of  Parliamentary  Ref  orm.  I  answered  that  I  was  not  in 
good  order  for  much  speaking,  for  I  have  suffered,  as  I  am  afraid  you  will 
find  before  I  come  to  the  end  of  my  speech,  from  much  cold  and  hoarseness, 
but  it  was  urged  upon  me  that  there  were  at  least  some,  and  not  an  inconsider- 
able number,  of  the  working  men  of  this  city  who  would  be  glad  -f  I  would 
meet  them  ;  and  it  was  proposed  to  offer  to  me  some  address  of  friendship 
and  confidence  such  as  that  which  has  been  read.  I  have  no  complaint  to 
make  of  it,  but  this,  that  whilst  I  do  not  say  it  indicates  too  much  kindness, 
yet  that  it  colours  too  highly  the  small  services  which  I  have  been  able  to 
render  to  any  portion  of  my  countrymen.  Your  countrymen  are  reckoned 
generally  to  be  a  people  of  great  gratitude  and  of  much  enthusiasm,  and, 
therefore,  I  accept  the  address  with  all  the  kindness  and  feelings  of  friend- 
ship with  which  it  has  been  offered,  and  I  hope  it  will  be,  at  least  in  some 
degree,  a  stimulant  to  me,  in  whatever  position  in  life  I  am  placed,  to 
remember,  as  I  have  ever  in  past  times  remembered,  the  claims  of  the  peogle 
of  this  island  to  complete  equal  justice  with  all  portions  of  the  people  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  Now,  there  may  be  persons  in  this  room,  I  should  be 
surprised  if  there  were  not,  who  doubt  whether  it  is  worth  their  while  even 
to  hope  for  substantial  justice,  as  this  address  says,  from  a  Parliament 
sitting  iii  London.  If  there  be  such  a  man  in  this  room  let  him  understand 
that  I  am  not  the  man  to  condemn  him  or  to  express  surprise  at  the  opinion 
at  which  he  has  arrived.  But  I  would  ask  him  in  return  for  that,  that  he 
would  give  me  at  least  for  a  few  minutes  a  patient  hearing,  and  he  will  find 
that,  whether  justice  may  come  from  the  north  or  the  south,  or  the  east  or 
the  west — (cries  of  "The  West,"  and  great  cheering) — I,  at  any  rate,  stand 
as  a  friend  to  the  most  complete  justice  to  the  people  of  this  island.  When 
discussing  the  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  I  have  often  heard  it 
asserted  that  the  people  of  Ireland,  and  I  am  not  speaking  of  those  who  arc 
hopeless  of  good  from  a  Parliament  in  London,  but  that  the  people  of  Ireland 
generally  imagine  that  the  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform  has 
very  little  importance  for  them.  Now  I  undertake  to  say,  and  I 
think  I  can  make  it  clear  to  this  meeting,  that  whatever  be  the 
importance  of  that  question  to  any  man  in  England  or  Scotland,, 
if  the  two  islands  are  to  continue  under  Imperial  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, it  is  of  more  importance  to  every  Irishman.  You  know  that 


5-1 

the  Parliament  of  which  I  am  a  member  contains  658  members,  of 
whom  105  cross  the  Channel  from  Ireland,  and  when  they  go  to 
London  they  meet — supposing  all  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
gathered  together — 553  members,  who  are  returned  for  Great  Britain.  Xow, 
suppose  that  all  your  105  members  were  absolutely  good  and  honourable 
representatives  of  the  people  of  Ireland — I  will  not  say  Tories,  or  Whigs,  or 
Radicals,  or  Repealers,  but  anything  you  like,  — let  every  man  imagine  that 
all  these  members  were  exactly  the  sort  of  men  he  would  wish  to  go  from 
Ireland,  when  the  105  arrive  in  London  they  meet  with  the  553  who  are 
returned  from  Great  Britain.  Xow,  suppose  that  the  system  of  Par- 
liamentary representation  in  Great  Britain  is  very  bad,  that  it  represents  very 
few  persons  in  that  great  island,  and  that  those  who  appear  to  be  repre- 
sented are  distributed  in  the  small  boroughs  over  different  parts  of  the 
country,  and  in  the  counties  under  the  thumb  and  finger  of  the  landlords,  it 
is  clear  that  the  whole  Parliament,  although  your  105  members  may  be 
very  good  men,  must  still  be  a  very  bad  Parliament.  Therefore,  if  any  man 
imagines — and  I  should  think  no  man  can  imagine — that  the  representation 
of  the  people  in  Ireland  is  in  a  very  good  state — still,  if  he  fancies  it  is  in  a 
good  state — unless  the  representation  of  Great  Britain  were  at  least  equally 
good,  you  might  have  a  hundred  excellent  Irish  members  in  Parliament  at 
Westminster  ;  but  the  whole  658  members  might  be  a  very  bad  Par- 
liament for  the  United  Kingdom.  The  member  for  a  borough  or  a  county 
in  Ireland,  when  he  goes  to  London,  votes  for  measures  for  the  whole  king- 
dom ;  and  a  member  for  Lancashire  or  for  Warwickshire,  or  for  any  other 
county  or  borough  in  Great  Britain,  t  votes  for  measures  not  only  for  Great 
Britain  but  also  for  Ireland,  and  therefore,  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom 
— every  county,  every  borough,  every  parish,  every  family,  every  man — 
has  a  clear  and  distinct  and  undoubted  interest  in  a  Parliament  that 
shall  fairly  and  justly  represent  the  whole  nation.  Xow,  look  for  a 
moment  at  two  or  three  facts  with  regard  to  Ireland  alone.  I  have 
stated  some  facts  with  regard  to  England  and  Scotland  at  recent  meetings 
held  across  the  Channel.  Xow  for  two  or  three  facts  with  regard  to  Ireland. 
In  Ireland  you  have  five  boroughs  returning  each  one  member,  the  average 
number  of  electors  in  each  of  these  boroughs  being  only  172.  You  have  13 
boroughs,  the  average  number  being  316.  You  have  nine  other  boroughs 
with  an  average  number  of  electors  of  497.  You  have,  therefore,  27 
boroughs  whose  whole  number  of  electors,  if  they  were  all  put  together,  is 
only  9,453,  or  an  average  of  350  electors  for  each  member.  I  must  tell 
you  further  that  you  have  a  single  county  with  nearly  twice  as  many 
voters  as  the  whole  of  those  27  boroughs.  Your  27  boroughs  have  only 
9,453  electors,  and  the  county  of  Cork  has  16,107  electors,  and  returns  but 
two  members.  But  that  is  not  the  worst  of  the  case.  It  happens  both  in 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  wherever  the  borough  constituencies  are  so  small, 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  that  they  should  be  independent;  a  very  acute 
lawyer,  for  example,  in  one  of  those  boroughs — a  very  influential  clergyman, 
whether  of  your  church  or  ours — when  I  say  ours,  I  do  not  mean  mine,  but 
the  Church  of  England — half-a-dozen  men  cembining  together,  or  a  little 
corruption  from  candidates  going  with  a  well-filled  purse, — these  are  the 


55 

influences  brought  to  bear  upon  those  small  boroughs  both  in  England  and 
Ireland.  A  great  many  of  them  return  their  members  by  means  of  cor- 
ruption, more  or  less,  and  a  free  and  real  representation  of  the  people  is 
hardly  ever  possible  in  a  borough  of  that  small  size.  But  if  I  were  to  com- 
pare your  boroughs  with  your  counties,  see  how  it  stands.  You  have  39 
borough  members,  with  30, 000  electors,  and  you  have  64  county  members, 
with  172,000  electors.  Therefore  you  see  that  the  members  are  so  dis- 
tributed that  the  great  populations  have  not  one  quarter  of  the  influence  in 
Parliament  which  those  small  populations  in  the  small  boroughs  have.  We 
come  next  to  another  question,  which  is  of  great  consequence.  Not  only 
are  those  small  boroughs  altogether  too  small  for  independence,  but  if  we 
come  to  your  large  county  constituencies,  we  find  that  from  the  peculiar 
circumstances  and  the  relations  which  exist  between  the  voter  and  the 
owner  of  the  land,  there  is  scarcely  any  freedom  of  election.  Even  in  your 
counties  I  should  suppose  that  if  there  was  no  compulsion  from  the 
landowners  or  their  agents,  that  in  at  least  three-fourths  of  this  island  the 
vote  of  the  county  electors  would  be  by  a  vast  majority  in  favour  of  the 
Liberal  candidates.  I  am  not  speaking  merely  of  men  who  profess  a  sort  of 
liberality  which  just  enables  them  to  go  with  their  party,  but  I  speak  of  men 
who  would  be  thoroughly  in  earnest  in  carrying  out,  as  far  as  they  were 
able,  in  Parliament,  the  opinions  which  they  were  sent  to  represent  by  the 
large  constituencies  who  elected  them.  The  question  of  the  ballot  is,  in  my 
opinion,  of  the  greatest  importance  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  but  is  of  more 
importance  in  the  counties  than  it  is  in  the  large  boroughs.  For  example : 
in  Great  Britain,  in  such  boroughs  as  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow,  and  Manchester 
and  Birmingham,  and  the  metropolitan  boroughs,  where  the  number  of  electors 
runs  from  10,000  to  25,000,  bribery  is  of  no  avail,  because  you  could  not  bribe 
thousands  of  men.  To  bribe  100  or  200  would  not  alter  the  return  at  an 
election  with  so  large  a  constituency.  But  what  you  want  with  the  ballot  is, 
that  in  the  counties  where  the  tenant  farmers  vote,  and  where  they  live  upon 
their  land  without  the  security  of  a  lease,  or  without  the  security  of  any  law  to 
to  give  them  compensation  for  any  improvements  they  have  made  upon  the 
land,  the  tenant  farmer  feels  himself  always  liable  to  injury,  and  sometimes  to 
ruin,  if  he  gets  into  a  dispute  with  the  agent  or  the  landowner  with  regard  to  the 
manner  in  which  he  has  exercised  his  franchise.  And  what  will  be  very 
important  also,  if  you  have  the  ballot,  your  elections  will  be  tranquil,  without 
disorder  and  without  riot.  Last  week,  or  the  week  before,  there  was  an 
election  in  one  of  your  great  counties.  Well,  making  every  allowance  that  can 
be  made  for  the  supposed  exaggerations  of  the  writers  of  the  two  parties,  it  is 
quite  clear  to  everybody  that  the  circumstances  of  that  election,  though  not 
absolutely  uncommon  in  Ireland,  were  still  such  as  to  be  utterly  discreditable  to 
a  real  representative  system.  And  you  must  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  no 
other  people  in  the  world  that  considers  that  it  has  a  fair  representative  system 
unless  it  has  the  ballot.  The  ballot  is  universal  almost  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  almost  universal  in  the  colonies,  at  any  rate  in  the  Australian  colonies  ;  it 
is  almost  universal  on  the  continent  pf  Europe,  and  in  the  new  parliament  of 
North  Germany,  which  is  about  soon  to  be  assembled,  every  man  of  25  years  of 
.age  is  to  be  allowed  to  vote,  and  tj>  vote  by  ballot.  Now,  I  hold,  without  any 


50 

fear  of  contradiction,  that  the  intelligence  and  the  virtues  of  the  people  of 
Ireland  are  not  represented  in  the  Parliament.  You  have  your  wrongs  to 
complain  of — wrongs  centuries  oM,  and  wrongs  that  long  ago  the  people  of  Ireland1, 

and,   I  venture  to  say,  the  people  of  Great  Britain  united  with  Ireland 

My  friend  up  there  will  not  listen  to  the  end  of  my  sentence.  I  say  that  ths 
people  of  Great  Britain,  acting  with  the  people  of  Ireland,  in  a  fair  repre- 
sentation of  the  whole,  would  long  ago  have  remedied  every  just  grievance 
of  which  you  could  complain.  Now,  I  will  take  two  questions  which  I 
treated  upon  the  other  evening.  I  will  ask  about  one  question — that 
is,  the  question  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  in  Ireland.  Half 
the  people  of  England  are  Nonconformists.  They  are  not  in  favour 
of  an  Established  Church  anywhere,  and  it  is  utterly  impossible  that 
they  could  be  in  favour  of  an  Established  Church  in  an  island  like  this — an 
Established  Church  formed  of  a  mere  handful  of  the  population,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  wishes  of  the  nation.  Now  take  the  principality  of  Wales.  I 
suppose  that  four  out  of  five  of  the  population  there  are  Dissenters,  anil 
they  are  not  in  favour  of  maintaining  a  religious  Protestant  establishment 
in  Ireland.  The  people  of  Scotland  have  also  seceded  in  such  large  numbers 
from  their  Established  Church,  although  of  a  democratic  character,  that  I. 
suppose  those  who  have  seceded  are  a  considerable  majority  of  the  whole 
people, — they  are  not  in  favour  of  maintaining  an  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment in  Ireland  in  opposition  to  the  views  of  the  great  majority  of  your 
people.  Take  the  other  question, — that  of  land.  There  is  nobody  in  Great 
Britain  of  the  great  town  population,  of  the  middle  class,  or  of  the  still 
more  numerous  working  class,  who  has  any  sympathy  with  that 
condition  of  the  law  and  of  the  administration  of  the  law  which  has 
worked  such  mischiefs  in  your  country.  But  these  Nonconformists,, 
whether  in  England,  Wales,  or  Scotland,  these  great  middle  classes,  and 
still  greater  working  classes,  are  in  the  position  that  you  are.  Only  sixteen. 
of  every  hundred  have  a  vote,  and  those  sixteen  are  so  arranged  that  whea 
their  representatives  get  to  Parliament  they  turn  out  for  the  most  part  to  be 
no  real  representatives  of  the  people.  I  will  tell  you  fairly  that  you,  as  the 
less  populous  and  less  powerful  part  of  this  great  nation — you  of  all  the  men 
in  the  United  Kingdom,  have  by  far  the  strongest  interest  in  a  thorough 
reform  of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  and  1  believe  that  you  yourselves  could 
not  do  yourselves  by  yourselves  more  complete  justice  than  you  can  do- 
fairly  acting  with  the  generous  millions  of  my  countrymen  in  whose  name  I 
stand  here.  You  have  on  this  platform  two  members  of  the  Reform  League 
from  London.  I  received  yesterday,  or  the  day  before,  a  telegram  from  the 
Scottish  Reform  League,  from  Glasgow.  I  am  not  sure  whether  there  is  a 
copy  of  it  in  any  of  the  newspapers,  but  it  was  sent  to  me,  and  I  presume 
it  was  sent  to  me  that  I  might  read  it  if  I  had  the  opportunity  of  meeting' 
any  of  the  unenfranchised  men  of  this  city.  It  says  :  The  Scottish  Reform 
League  request  you  to  convey  to  the  Reformers  in  Ireland  their  deep  sym- 
pathy. They  sincerely  hope  that  soon  in  Ireland  as  in  Scotland  and 
England,  Reform  Leagues  may  be  formed  in  every  town  to  secure  to  the 
people  their  political  rights.  Urge  upon  our  friends  in  Ireland  their  duty 
to  promote  this  great  movement,  and  to  secure  at  home  those  benefits  which; 


57 

thousands  of  their  fellow-countrymen  are  forced  to  seek  in  other  l.inrlr — 
•where  land  and  State  Church  grievances  are  unknown.  We  also  seek  co- 
operation, knowing  that  our  freedom,  though  secure  lo-morrow,  would, not 
be  safe  so  long  as  one  portion  of  the  United  Kingdom  were  less  free  than 
the  others.  There  is  the  outspoken  voice  of  the  representatives  of  that 
great  multitude  that  only  a  fortnight  since  I  saw  passing  through  the  streets 
of  Glasgow.  For  three  hours  the  procession  passed,  with  all  the  emblems 
and  symbols  of  their  various  trades,  and  the  streets  for  two  or  three  miles 
were  enlivened  by  banners,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  the  sounds  of  music 
from  their  bands.  Those  men  but  spoke  the  same  language  that  was  heard 
in  the  West  Fading,  in  Manchester,  in  Birmingham,  and  in  London,  and  you 
men  of  Dublin,  and  of  Ireland,  you  never  made  a  mistake  more  grievous 
in  your  lives  than  for  you  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  are 
not  millions  of  men  in  Great  Britain  willing  to  do  you  full  justice.  I  am 
very  sorry  that  my  voice  is  not  what  it  was,  and  when  I  think  of  the 
work  that  is  to  be  done  sometimes  I  feel  it  is  a  pity  we  grow  old  so  fast. 
But  years  ago,  when  I  have  thought  of  the  condition  of  Ireland,  of  its 
sorrows  and  wrongs,  of  the  discredit  that  its  condition  has  brought  upon 
the  English,  the  Irish,  and  the  British  name,  I  have  thought,  if  I  could  be 
in  all  other  things  the  same,  but  by  birth  an  Irishman,  there  is  not  a  town 
in  this  island  I  would  not  visit  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  great  Irish 
question,  and  of  rousing  my  countrymen  to  some  great  and  united  action. 
I  do  not  believe  in  the  necessity  of  widespread  and  perpetual  misery.  I  do 
not  believe  that  we  are  placed  on  this  island,  and  on  this  earth,  that  one 
man  might  be  great  and  wealthy,  and  revel  in  every  profuse  indulgence* 
and  five,  six,  nine,  or  ten  men  should  suffer  the  abject  misery  which  we  see 
so  commonly  in  the  world.  With  your  soil,  your  climate,  and  your  active 
and  spirited  race,  I  know  not  what  they  might  not  do.  There  have  been, 
reasons  to  my  mind  why  soil  and  climate,  and  the  labour  of  your  population, 
have  not  produced  general  comfort  and  competence  for  all.  The  address 
speaks  of  the  friendly  feeling  and  the  sympathy  which  I  have  hr.d  for 
Ireland  during  my  political  career.  When  I  first  went  into  the-  House  of 
Commons  the  most  prominent  figure  in  it  was  Daniel  O'Connell.  I  have 
sat  by  his  side  for  hours  during  the  discussions  in  that  House,  and  listened 
to  observations  both  amusing  and  instructive  on  what  was  passing 
tinder  discussion.  I  have  seen  him,  too,  more  than  once  upon  our 
platform  of  the  Anti- Corn-law  League.  I  recollect  that  on  one  occasion 
he  sent  to  Ireland  expressly  for  a  newspaper  for  me,  which  contained  a 
report  of  a  speech  which  he  made  against  the  corn  law  when  the  corn  law 
was  passing  through  Parliament  in  1815,  and  we  owe  much  to  his  exertions- 
in  connection  with  that  question,  for  almost  the  whole  Liberal — I  suppose 
the  whole  Liberal — party  of  the  Irish  representatives  in  Parliament 
supported  the  measure  of  free  trade  of  which  we  were  the  promi- 
nent advocates  ;  and  I  know  of  nothing  that  was  favourable  to  freedom, 
whether  in  connection  with  Ireland  or  England,  that  O'Connell  did  not 
support  with  all  his  great  powers.  I  kno\v  nothing  pleasantcr,  and  hardly, 
anything  more  useful,  than  personal  recollections  of  this  nature.  Why  is 
it,  now,  there  should  be  any  kind  of  schism  between  the  Liberal  people  of 


Ireland  and  the  Liberal  people  of  Great  Britain  ?     I  don't  ask  you  to  join 
hands  with  supremacy  and  oppression,  whether  in  your  island  or  ours. 
"What  I  ask  you  is,  to  open  your  heart  of  hearts,  and  join  hands  for  a  real 
and  thorough  working  union  for  freedom  with  the  great  people  of  Great 
Britain.     Before  I  sit  down,  I  must  be  allowed  to  advert  to  a  point  which 
has  been  much  commented  upon — a  paragraph  in  my  speech  made  the  other 
night  with  regard  to  the  land.     There  are  newspapers  in  Dublin  which  I 
need  not  name,  because  I  am  quite  sure  you  can  find  them  out — which  do 
not  feel  any   strong   desire   or   conscientious   compulsion  to  judge   fairly 
anything  I  may  say  amongst  the  various  measures  which  I  propose  for  what 
I  shall  call  the  pacification,  and  redemption  if  you  like,  of  the  peopleof  Ireland. 
It  was  this  I  said  :   "It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  the  people  of  Ireland, 
by  some  process  or  other,  should  have  the  opportunity  of  being  made  the 
possessors  of  their  own  soil.     You  will  know  perfectly  well  that  I  am  not 
about  to  propose  a  copy  of  the  villanous  crimes  of  200  years  ago,  to  confiscate 
the  lands  of  the  proprietors,  here  or  elsewhere.     I  propose  to  introduce  a 
system  which  would  gradually,  no  doubt  rapidly  and  easily,  without  injuring 
anybody,  make  many  thousands  who  are  now  tenant  farmers,  without  lease 
and  security,  the  owners  of  their  farms  in  this  island.    This  is  my  plan,  and  I 
want  to  restate  it  with  a  little  further  explanation,  in  order  that  these  gentle- 
men to  whom  I  have  referred  may  not  repeat  the  very  untrue,  and  I  may  say 
dishonourable  comments  which  they  have  made  upon  me.  There  are  many  large 
estates  in  Ireland  which  belong  to  rich  families  in  England, — families  not  only 
•of  the  highest  rank,  but  of  the  highest  character, — because  I  will  venture  to 
say  there  are  not  to  be  found  amongst  the  English  nobility  families  of  more 
perfect  honourableness  and  worth  than  some  of  those  to  whom  my  plan 
would  be  offered  ;  and,   therefore,   1  am  not  speaking  against  the  aristo- 
cracy, against  those  families,  or  against  property,  or  against  any  body,  or 
against  anything  that  is  good.     I  say,   that  if  Parliament  were  to  appoint  a 
commission,  and  give  it,   say,    at  iirst,   up  to  the  amount  of  five  millions 
sterling,  the  power  to  negotiate  or  treat  with  those  great  families  in  Eng- 
land who  have  great  estates  in  Ireland,   it  is  probable  that  some  of  those 
great  estates  might  be  bought  at  a  not  very  unreasonable  price.     I  am  of 
opinion  it  would  be  the  cheapest  money  that  the  Imperial  Parliament  ever 
expended,  even  though  it  became  possessed  of  those  estates  at  a  price  con- 
siderably above  the  market  price.     But  I  propose  it  should  be  worked  in 
this  way.     I  will  take  a  case.     I  will  assume  that  this  commission  has  got 
a  considerable  estate  into  its  possession,  bought  from  some  present  owner  of 
it.     I  will  take  one  farm,   which  I  will  assume  to  be  worth  £1,000,  for 
which  the  present  tenant  is  paying  a  rent  of  £50  a  year.     He  has  no  lease. 
He  has  no  security.     He  makes  almost  no  permanent  improvement  of  any 
kind  ;  and  he  is  not  quite  sure  whether,  when  he  has  saved  a  little  more 
money,  he  will  not  take  his  family  off  to  the  United  States.     Now  we  -^11 
assume  ourselves,  if  you  like,  to  be  that  commission,  and  that  we  have  before 
us  the  farmer  who  is  the  tenant  on  that  particular  farm,  for  which  he  pays 
£50  a  year,  without  lease  or  security,  and  which  lassume  to  beworth  £1,000. 
The  Government,  1  believe,  lends  money  to  Irishlandowners  for  drainage  pur- 
poses at  about  3J  per  cent  per  annum.     Suppose  the  Government  were  to 


59 

go  to  this  farmer  and  say,  "  You  would  not  have  any  objection  to  become 
possessed  of  this  farm  ?"  "  No,  not  the  slightest,"  he  might  say,  "  but  how 
is  that  to  be  done  ?"  In.  this  way ;  tell  the  farmer — you  may  pay  £50  a 
year,  that  is,  5  per  cent,  on  one  thousand  pounds  ;  the  Government  can 
afford  to  do  these  transactions  for  3i  per  cent.;  if  you  will  pay  £60  a  year 
for  a  given  number  of  years,  which  any  of  the  actuaries  of  the  insurance 
offices,  or  any  good  arithmetician  may  soon  calculate, — if  you  will  pay  £60 
for  your  rent,  instead  of  £50,  it  may  be  fifteen,  or  twenty  years,  or  more, — 
at  the  end  of  that  time  the  farm  will  be  yours,  without  any  further  payment. 
I  want  you  to  understand  how  this  is.  If  the  farmer  paid  ten  pounds  a 
year  more  towards  buying  his  farm,  the  fact  is,  that  the  £1,000  the  Govern- 
ment would  pay  for  the  farm  would  not  cost  the  Government  more  than 
£35,  and  therefore  the  difference  between  .£35  and  £60  being  £25,  would  be 
the  sum  which  that  farmer,  in  his  rent,  would  be  paying  to  the  commission, 
that  is,  the  Government,  for  the  redemption  of  his  farm.  Thus,  at  the  end 
of  a  very  few  years  the  farmer  would  possess  his  own  farm,  leaving  a  perfect 
security.  All  the  time  nobody  could  turn  him  out  if  he  paid  his  rent,  and 
nobody  could  touch  him  for  any  improvement  he  made  on  his  land.  The 
next  morning  after  he  made  that  agreement,  he  would  speak  to  his  wife  and 
to  his  big  boy,  who  had  perhaps  been  idling  about  for  a  long  time,  and  there 
would  not  be  a  stone  on  the  land  that  would  not  be  removed,  not  a  weed 
that  he  would  not  pull  up,  not  a  particle  of  manure  that  he  would  not  save ; 
there  would  not  be  anything  that  he  would  not  do  with  a  zeal  and  an 
enthusiasm  which  he  had  never  known  before  to  cultivate  that  farm ;  and 
by  the  time  the  few  years  had  run  on  when  the  farm  should  become  his 
without  any  further  purchase,  he  would  have  turned  a  dilapitated,  miserable 
little  farm  into  a  garden  for  himself  and  family.  Now,  this  statement  may 
be  commented  on  by  some  of  the  newspapers.  You  will  understand  that  I 
do  not  propose  a  forced  purchase,  or  confiscation.  I  would  undertake  even  to 
give — if  I  were  the  Government — to  every  one  of  these  landlords  twenty 
per  cent,  more  for  his  estate  than  it  will  fetch  in  any  market  in  London  or  in 
Dublin,  and  I  say  that  to  do  this  would  produce  a  marvellous  change  in 
the  sentiments  of  the  people,  and  in  the  condition  of  agriculture  in  Ireland. 
But  I  saw  in  one  of  the  papers  a  question  to  which  I  may  give  a  reply. 
It  wos  said,  how  would  you  like  to  have  a  commission  come  down  into 
Lancashire  and  insist  on  buying  your  factories  ?  I  can  only  say  that  if 
they  will  give  me  10  per  cent,  or  20  per  cent,  more  than  they  are  worth 
they  shall  have  them  to-morrow.  But  I  do  not  propose  that  the  commission 
should  come  here  and  insist  on  buying  these  estates.  They  say,  further, — 
Why  should  a  man  in  Ireland  keep  his  estate,  and  not  a  man  in  England 
who  has  an  estate  in  Ireland  ?  There  is  this  difference.  A  man  in  Ireland, 
if  he  has  an  estate  of  10,000  acres,  it  is  probably  his  ancestral  home.  He 
has  ties  to  this  which  it  would  be  monstrous  to  think  of  severing  in  such 
a  manner,  but  a  man  living  in  England,  who  is  not  an  Irishman,  and  never 
comes  over  here  except  to  receive  his  rents  (which,  by  the  way,  he  generally 
gets  through  his  bankers  in  London),  who  has  no  particular  tie  to  this 
country,  and  who  comes  over  here  occasionally  merely  because  he  feels 
that,  as  a  great  proprietor  in  Ireland,  it  would  be  scandalous  never  to  show 


GO 

his  face  on  his  property  and  amongst  his  tenants — to  such  a  man  there  is 
nothing  much  of  sentiment  in  it  that  he  should  not  part  with  his  land  at  a 
fair  price.  I  have  been  charged  with  saying  very  severe  things  of  the 
English  aristocracy.  Now,  it  is  not  true  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  imputed 
to  me.  I  have  always  said  that  there  are  many  men  in  the  English  aris- 
tocracy who  would  be  noblemen  in  the  sight  of  their  fellow-men,  although 
they  had  no  titles  and  no  coronets.  There  are  men  amongst  them  of  aa 
undoubted  patriotism  as  any  man  in  this  building,  or  in  this  island,  and  there 
are  men  amongst  them,  who  when  they  saw  that  a  great  public  object  is  to  be 
served  for  the  benefit  of  their  fellow-men,  would  make  as  great  sacrifices 
as  any  one  of  us  would  be  willing  to  do.  I  am  of  opinion  therefore, — I 
may  be  wrong,  but  I  will  not  believe  I  am  until  it  is  proved,  —  I  am  of 
opinion  that  if  this  question  were  discussed  in  Parliament  when  the  next 
Irish  land  question  is  discussed,  and  if  there  was  a  general  sentiment  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  some  measure  like  this  would  be  advantageous  for 
Ireland,  and  if  it  were  so  expressed,  it  may  be  assumed  that  it  would  be 
accepted  to  a  large  extent  by  the  people  of  the  United  Kingdom, — then  1 
think  that  a  commission  so  appointed  would  find  no  difficulty  whatever  in 
discovering  noblemen  and  rich  men  in  England,  in  Scotland  too,  who  are  the 
possessors  of  great  estates  in  Ireland,  who  would  be  willing  to  negotiate  for 
their  transfer,  and  that  commission,  by  the  process  I  have  indicated,  might 
transfer  them  gradually  but  speedily  to  the  tenant  farmers  of  this  country. 
I  am  told  that  I  have  not  been  much  in  Ireland,  and  do  not  know  much  of 
it.  I  recollect  a  man  in  England  during  the  American  war  asking  me  a 
question  about  America.  When  I  gave  him  the  answer  it  did  not  agree 
with  his  opinion,  and  he  said,  "I  think  you  have  never  been  in  America, 
have  you?"  I  said  I  had  not;  and  he  replied,  "Well,  I  have  been, 
there  three  times,  and  I  know  something  of  them."  He  was  asking 
me  whether  I  thought  the  Yankees  would  pay  when  they  borrowed 
money  to  carry  on  the  war ;  and  I  thought  they  would.  But,  as  he 
had  been  there,  he  thought  his  opinion  was  worth  more  than  mine. 
I  told  him  I  knew  several  people  who  had  lived  in  England  all  their 
lives,  and  yet  knew  very  little  about  England.  I  am  told  that  if  I  were  to 
live  in  Ireland  longer  amongst  the  people  I  should  have  a  different  opinion, 
that  I  should  think  the  church  of  a  small  minority  was  honest,  in  the  face  of 
the  great  church  of  the  majority;  that  I  should  think  it  was  not  the  fault  of 
the  landowners  or  of  the  law  in  any  degree,  but  the  fault  of  the  tenants  that 
everything  went  wrong  with  regard  to  the  land ;  and  that  I  should  find  that 
it  was  the  Government  that  was  mostly  right,  and  the  legislation  right, 
and  that  it  was  the  people  that  were  mostly  wrong.  There  are  certain 
questions  with  regard  to  any  country  that  you  may  settle  in  your  own  house, 
never  having  seen  that  country  even  upon  a  map.  This  you  may  settle, 
that  that  which  is  just  is  just  everywhere,  and  that  men,  from  those  of  the 
highest  culture  even  to  those  of  the  most  moderate  capacity,  whatever  may 
be  their  race,  whatever  their  colour,  have  implanted  in  their  hearts  by  their 
Creator,  wiser  much  than  these  men,  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  justice. 
I  will  tell  you  that,  since  the  day  when  I  sat  beside  O'Connell — and  at  aix 
earlier  day,  that  I  have  considered  this  question  of  Ireland.  In  1849,  for 


61 

several  weeks  in  tlie  autumn,  and  for  several  weeks  in  the  autumn  of  1852, 
\  came  to  Ireland  expressly  to  examine  these  questions  by  consulting  with 
all  classes  of  the  people  in  every  part  of  the  island.  I  will  undertake 
to  say  that  I  believe  there  is  no  man  in  England  who  has  more  fully  studied 
the  evidence  given  before  the  celebrated  Devon  commission  in  regard  to 
Ireland  than  I  have.  Therefore  I  dare  stand  up  before  any  Irishman  or  English- 
man to  discuss  the  Irish  question.  I  say  that  the  plans,  the  theories,  the  policy  of 
legislation  of  my  opponents  in  this  matter  all  have  failed  signally,  deplorably, 
disastrously,  ignominiously,  ami,  therefore,  I  say  that  I  have  a  right  to  come  in 
and  offer  the  people  of  Ireland,  as  I  would  offer  to  the  people  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  Imperial  Parliament,  a  wise  and  just  policy  upon  this  ques- 
tion. You  know  that  I  have  attended  great  meetings  in  England  within  the 
last  two  months,  and  in  Scotland  also.  I  think  that  I  am  at  liberty  to  tender 
to  you  from  those  scores,  or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  the  hand  of 
fellowship  and  goodwill.  I  wish  I  might  be  permitted  when  I  go  back,  as  in 
fact,  I  think  by  this  address  that  I  am  permitted  to  say  to  them,  that  araidst 
the  factions  by  which  Ireland  has  been  torn,  amidst  the  many  errors  that  have 
been  committed,  amidst  the  passions  that  have  been  excited,  amidst  the  hopes 
that  have  been  blasted,  and  amidst  the  misery  that  has  been  endured,  there  is 
still  iu  this  island,  and  amongst  its  people,  a  heart  that  can  sympathise  with 
those  who  turn  to  them  with  a  fixed  resolution  to  judge  them  fairly,  and  to  do 
them  justice.  (Loud  cheers,  which  were  prolonged  for  several  minutes,  the 
audience  rising  and  waving  their  hats.)  I  have  made  my  speech.  I  have  said 
my  say.  I  have  fulfilled  my  small  mission  to  you.  I  thank  you  from  my 
heart  for  the  kindness  with  which  you  have  received  me,  which  I  shall  never 
forget.  And  if  I  have  in  past  times  felt  an  unquenchable  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  of  your  people,  you  may  rely  upon  it  that  if  there  be  an  Irish 
member  to  speak  for  Ireland,  he  will  find  me  heartily  by  his  sile. 


SPEECH    AT    MANCHESTER. 


AT  the  great  Reform  Banquet  in  the  Free-trade  Hall,  Manchester, 
November  20th,  1866,  Mr.  Bright,  M.P.,  who  was  present,  rose 
amidst  enthusiastic  cheering,  continuing  for  several  minutes,  the 
greater  part  of  the  audience  standing.  He  said  : — 

Although,  perhaps,  this  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and  important 
meetings  which  have  been  held  in  this  country  during  the  last  few  years,  you 
will,  perhaps,  be  surprised  to  learn  that  I  came  to  it  with  a  sense  almost  of 
indifference  :  not  indifference  as  to  its  importance  ;  but  with  an  absence  of 
that  feeling  of  responsibility  which  has  pressed  so  much  upon  me,  on  some 
recent  occassions.  For  the  committee  were  kind  enough  to  sond  round  to 


G2 

their  guests  a  list  of  the  speakers  who  were  expected  to  address  the  meeting. 
I  found  them  much  more  numerous  than  is  common,  and  I  found  my  name 
about  half  way  down  the  list.  I  took  it,  therefore,  for  granted  that  I  could 
come,  for  once,  in  some  degree,  as  a  spectator  and  a  listener,  rather  than  as  a 
prominent  actor  at  the  meeting.  Some  gentlemen  who  were  expected  to  be 
here  are  not  here — Mr.  Stansfeld,  because  he  is  ill  ;  Mr.  Layard,  because 
he  has  not  returned  from  the  Continent.  And  Mr.  Forster,  who  seems  less 
able  to  occupy  the  time  of  an  audience  when  he  comes  into  Lancashire  than 
he  is  in  Yorkshire — has  spoken,  I  may  say,  uttering  the  feeling  of  the  whole 
meeting,  for  a  very  much  shorter  time  than  we  had  a  right  to  expect.  I 
shall  trust,  therefore,  to  those  who  come  after  me  to  say  a  good  deal  which 
I  shall  not  take  up  your  time  in  attempting  to  say  to-night.  During  the 
last  memorable  session  of  Parliament  you  will  probably  recollect  that  it  was 
a  very  common  thing  in  the  mouths  of  the  opponents  of  the  Government  bill 
to  say  that  the  working  men — the  aggrieved  party — felt  no  grievance  ;  for 
they  scarcely  expressed  any  opinion  on  the  bill — in  its  favour,  or,  indeed, 
any  opinion  at  all  on  the  question  of  their  own  admission  to  the  franchise. 
I  was  repeatedly  charged  with  being  in  the  position  of  a  leader  in  a  case, 
and  it  was  said  that,  after  all,  I  had  no  clients  and  no  following.  There 
was  a  general  taunt  uttered  that  we  were  very  much  exaggerating  the  case 
of  the  working  men,  and  that  the  condition  of  that  large  class  was  so 
comfortable  and  so  prosperous  that  they  were  perfectly  content  with  the 
Government  as  it  is  carried  on  by  a  Parliament  so  inadequately  representing 
the  whole  nation.  I  suspect  that  the  argument,  so  far  as  it  was  uttered, 
and  had  any  force,  has  now  been  fully  and  satisfactorily  answered.  But 
these  gentlemen  have  turned  right  round,  and  have  now  another  thing  to 
say  about  our  meetings.  They  say  that  the  middle  class  stands  entirely 
aloof,  that  nobody  really  cares  for  reform  but  the  working  men,  and  that  no 
great  question  can  be  earned,  or  sensibly  affected,  in  this  country  by  the 
opinions  and  action  of  working  men  alone.  They  point  to  the  great  meet- 
ings that  have  been  held,  and  after  dividing  the  notorious  and  proved 
magnitude  of  the  meetings  by  four  or  six,  they  then  conclude  that  there 
were  a  few  thousands  of  working  men  present  ;  but  members  of  Parliament, 
manufacturers,  merchants,  and  what  they  call  the  respectable  and 
influential  clusses  were  found  to  be  entirely  absent.  But  they  forge ; 
these  meetings  at  which  they  say  working  men  only  attended  were  meetings 
called  expressly  by  working  men  and  for  working  men.  But  if  they  want  t* 
know,  or  wanted  to  know,  how  far  the  main  objects  of  those  meetings  receive  I 
sympathy  from  a  more  powerful  class,  they  might  have  come  to  those 
meetings  to  have  learned.  In  Birmingham,  as  you  know,  the  Mayor 
was  in  the  procession,  and  the  chief  constable  of  the  town  took 
charge  of  all  the  arrangements  of  it  ;  and  in  the  great  1  own-hall 
of  that  city,  the  Mayor  took  the  chair  at  the  evening  meeting,  and  I 
venture  to  say  that  it  would  be  impossible  in  any  town  in  this  kingdom  to 
assemble  upon  the  platform  a  greater  amount  of  what  these  gentlemen  call 
respectability,  wealth,  and  station  in  the  town  than  were  assembled  there 
and  then.  If  they  had  come  to  this  hall  on  the  evening  of  the  great 
meeting  in  Manchester,  raid  if  they  had  gone  to  the  Town-ball  of  Leeds,  or 


G3 

to  the  City-hall  of  Glasgow,  they  would  have  found  that  after  the  scores  of 
thousands  that  had  attended  the  great  open-air  meeting  in  the  daytime  there 
was  a  meeting  most  important,  most  influential,  omnipotent  indeed,  within 
that  town  in  which  it  was  held.      In  the  town  of  Leeds,  I  was  told  nearly 
1,000  persons  paid  5s.  each  to  attend  the  meeting  in  the  Town-hall,  and  I 
think  that  is  some  sign  of  the  class  of  persons  who  attended.     But  if  there 
was  any  question  on  this  matter,  I  would  ask  those  gentlemen  to  come  on 
this  platform  to-night.      Here  is  the  largest  and  finest  hall  in  Britain,  the 
largest  and  finest  hall  in  Europe,  I  believe  the  largest  and  finest  hall  in  the 
world,  and  yet  this  hall  is  crowded  with  persons  to  whom  our  opponents,  I 
think    generally,    unless  they   were    very   fastidious,    would    admit    the 
term  respectable  and   influential.       I  doubt  if  there  has  ever  been  held  in 
this  kingdom,  within  our  time,  a  political  banquet  more  numerous,  more 
influential,  more  unr.nirnous,  more  grand  in  every  respect,  than  that  which, 
is  held  here  to-night.     Just  now,  it  is  the  fashion  to  flatter  and  to  court  the 
middle  class.     The  middle  class  are  told  that  since  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832 
political  power  has  been  in  their  hands;  before  1832  it  was  with  the  lords 
and  great  landowners,  but  since  1832  it  has  been  in  the  hands  of  the  middle 
class,  and  now  the  middle  class  are  asked  whether  they  are  willing  to 
surrender  that  power  into  the  hands  of  a  more  numerous,  and,  as  these 
persons  assert,  a  dangerous  class,  who  would  swamp,  not  the  highest  class 
of  lords  and  great  landowners,  highest  in  social  position,  but  would  swamp 
also  the  great  middle  class  with  whom  power  is  now  said  to  rest.      And 
they  try  to  teach  the  middle  class  that  there  is  an  essentially  different 
interest  between  them  and  the  great  body  of  the  people  who  are  not  yet 
admitted  into  that  clcss.     They  say  the  one  class  is  in  power,  and  the  other 
class  is  outside,  and  out  of  power,  and  they  warn  the  middle  class  against 
admitting  the  outsiders  into  partnership  with  them,   for  fear  that  they 
should  dethrone  the  middle  class  and  set  up  an  unintelligent,  unreasoning, 
and  selfish  power  of  their  own.     That  is  the  sort  of  argument  which  is  used 
to  the  middle  class  to  induce  them  to  take  no  part  in  any  measure  that  shall 
admit  the  working  class  to  a  participation  in  political  power.      I  should  be 
ashamed  to  stand  on  any  platform  and  to  employ  such  an  argument  as  this. 
Is  there  to  be  found  in  the  writings  or  the  speaking  of  any  public  man  con- 
nected with  the  Liberal  or  the  Reform  party  so  dangerous  and  so  outrageous 
a  policy  as  that  which  these  men  pursue  ?    When  separating  the  great  bodv 
of  the  people  into  the  middle  and  the  working  class,  they  set  class  against 
class,  and  ask  you  to  join  with  the  past  and  present  monopolists  of  power 
in  the  miserable  and  perilous  determination  to  exclude  for  ever  the  great 
body  of  your  countrymen  from  the  common  rights  of  the  glorious  English 
constitution.     There  is  no  greater  fallacy  than  that — that  the  middle  classes 
are  in  possession  of  power.      The  real  state  of  the  case,  if  it  were  put  in 
simple  language,  would  be  this — that  the  working  men  are  almost  univer- 
sally excluded,  roughly  and  insolently,  from  political  power,  and  that  the 
middle  class,  whilst  they  have  the  semblance  of  it,  are  defrauded  of  the 
reality.     The  difference  and  the  resemblance  is  this,  that  the  working  men 
come  to  the  hustings  at  an  election,  and  when  the  returning-officer  asks 
for  the    show    of    hands   every  man  can  hold  up  his  hand  although  his 


name  is  not  upon  the  register  of  voters  ;  every  worlung  man  can 
vote  at  that  show  of  hands,  but  the  show  of  hands  is  of  no  avail. 
The  middle  class  have  votes,  but  those  votes  are  rendered  harmless 
and  nugatory  by  the  unfair  distribution  of  them,  and  there  is  placed 
in  the  voter's  hand  a  weapon  which  has  neither  temper  nor  edge  by 
which  he  can  neither  fight  for  further  freedom,  nor  defend  that  which 
his  ancestors  have  gained.  On  a  recent  occasion,  perhaps  it  was  when 
I  last  stood  on  this  platform,  I  stated  certain  facts  which  have  not,  from 
that  day  to  this,  been  contradicted — I  stated  that  out  of  every  100  men 
throughout  the  United  Kingdom,  grown-up  men,  liable  to  taxes,  expected 
to  perform  all  the  duties  of  life,  responsible  to  the  laws,  84  were  excluded 
i'rorn  the  franchise,  and  that  16  only  were  included.  I  want  to  ask  whether 
the  10  out  of  the  100  may  be  said  to  include  all  the  middle  class  ?  But  there 
is  another  fact,  if  possible  more  astonishing  still,  and  that  is  that  three  men 
out  of  every  100  throughout  the  United  Kingdom  do  apparently  by  their 
votes  return  an  actual  majority  of  the  present  House  of  Commons.  But  if 
a  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  be  returned  by  a  number  so  small  as 
three  out  of  every  100  of  the  men  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  if  the  other 
House  of  Parliament  asks  for  no  votes  at  all,  I  ask  you  whether  it  is  not  a 
fact  of  the  most  transparent  character  that  power,  legislative  and  governing, 
in  this  country  does  not  rest  with  the  middle  classes  ?  What  Mr.  Forster 
says  is  quite  true.  You  may  have  suffrage — this  or  that,  but  you  may 
have  distribution  of  power  so  and  such  that  even  your  present  representation, 
bad  as  it  is,  may  be  made  something  even  worse.  Take  the  case  of  your 
boroughs,  in  which  alone  may  be  said  to  rest  everything  that  exists  in  the 
United  Kingdom  of  a  free  election.  Divide  the  boroughs,  254  in  number, 
into  two  classes,  those  under  20,000  inhabitants  and  those  over  that  number. 
Under  20,000  there  are  145  boroughs  ;  over  it  109.  But  the  boroughs  under 
20,000  return  215  members,  against  181  that  are  returned  by  the  boroughs 
over  20,000.  But  that  gives  only  a  very  misty  idea  of  the  state  of  the  case. 
Those  boroughs  over  20,000  inhabitants,  having  39  members  fewer  than  the 
the  boroughs  under  20,000,  still  are  in  this  position — their  members  represent 
six  tunes  as  many  electors,  seven  times  as  much  population,  and  fourteen 
times  as  much  payment  of  income-tax  as  the  larger  number  of  members 
represent.  It  is  clear  beyond  all  cavil — for  figures,  after  all,  are  difficult 
things  to  meet  and  controvert  if  they  are  correct — that  your  representative 
system,  even  in  the  boroughs  where  alone  it  exists  in  any  life  at  all — is  a 
representative  system  almost  wholly  delusive,  and  defrauds  the  middle 
classes  of  the  power  which  the  act  of  1832  professed  to  give  them.  And 
your  county  representation  is  almost  too  sad  a  subject  to  dwell  upon.  Every- 
man who  occupies  a  house  or  land  of  an  annual  value  less  than  £50  is  excluded; 
the  number  of  freeholders  in  the  main  diminishes,  and  really  there  remains 
scarcely  anything  of  independent  power  and  freedom  of  election  within  the 
majority  of  the  counties  of  the  United  Kingdom.  So,  then,  I  come  to  this 
conclusion,  that  the  working  classes  are  excluded  and  insulted,  and  that  tin; 
middle  classes  are  defrauded  ;  and  I  presume  that  those  who  really  do  wield 
the  power  despise  the  middle  classes  for  their  silence  under  this  system:. 
When  I  look  at  tlio  qrervt  middle  cl's.iof  this  country,  and  see  all  that  it  has 


65 

done,  and  see  the  political  position  iu  \vliicli  it  has  been  to  some  extent 
content  to  rest,  I  cannot  help  saying  that  it  reminds  me  very  much  of  the 
language  which  the  ancient  Hebrew  patriarch  addressed  to  one  of  his  sons. 
He  said  :   "  Issachar  is  a  strong  ass,  couching  down  between  two  burdens." 
On  the  one  side  there  is  the  burden  of  seven  and  a  half  millions  per  annum, 
raised  by  way  of  tax,  to  keep  from  starvation  more  than  one  million  two 
hundred  thousand  paupers  within  the  United  Kingdom — and  on  the  other 
hand,    and   higher   up  in  the   scale,   there    is    mismanagement  the    most 
gross,    there   is   extravagance    the    most    reckless,    and    there  is    waste 
the  most   appalling  and  disgraceful   which  haa    ever    been   seen    in  the 
government  of  any  country.  And  this  is  the   grand  result  of  a   system 
which    systematically  shuts   out    the    millions,    and    which   cajoles   the 
middle  classes  by  the  hocus  pocus  of  a  Parliamentary  Government.     Sir,  I 
am  delighted  beyond  measure,   after  many  years  of  discussion,   of  contem- 
plation   of    labour — in  connection  with  this  great  question — I  say  I  am 
delighted  to  believe  that  the  great' body  of  the  people,  call  them  middle 
class  or  call  them  working  class,  are  resolved  that  this  state  of  things  shal 
exist  no  longer.      During  the  last  session  of  Parliament  there  has  been  made 
by  an  honest  Government  an  honest  attempt  to  tinker  the  existing  system. 
For,  after  all,  the  bill  of  the  last  session,  honest  and  well  intended  and 
valuable  as  it  was,  was  still  but  a  tinkering  of  a  very  bad  system.     But  the 
Tory  party  refused  even  to  have  it  tinkered.     They  remind  me  very  much 
of  a  wealthy  but  a  most  penurious  old  gentleman,  who  lived  some  years  ago 
in  my  neighbourhood,   and  who  objected,    amongst   other  expenses,  very 
much  to  a  tailor's  bill,  and  he  said  that  he  had  found  out  that  a  hole  would 
last  longer  than  a  patch.     I  am  not  sure  that  that  is  not  the  case  with  Lord 
Derby  and  his  friends  ;  for  it  was  one  of  their  great  arguments  that  if  the 
bill  of  the  Government  passed  it  would  inevitably  follow  that  something 
more  would  almost  immediately  be  demanded.     They  were  so  anxious  that 
things  should  remain  as  they  are  that  they  refused  to  admit  200,000  more 
of  the  middle   class  by  the   lowering  of  the  county   franchise,   and  they 
refused  with  equal,  perhaps  with  greater  pertinacity,  to  admit  200,000,  but, 
as  I  believe,  not  much  more  than  100,000  working  men,  to  electoral  rights. 
They  would  not  suppress,   nor  allow  the  suppression  of  one  single  rotten 
borough,  and  in  fact  there  was  no  abuse,  however  foul,  however  intolerable, 
however  putrid,  to  which  they  would  allow  the  legislative  reforming  knife 
to  be  applied  ;  and  they  determined  to  keep  everything  just  as  it  is.     And 
now  these  gentlemen,  that  we  were  obliged,   to  our  great  misfortune,  to 
contend  with  so  much  last  session,  are  in  office.     They  call  themselves  Her 
Majesty's  servants  ;  but  they  have  not  yet  dared  to  proclaim,  that  they  are 
the  accepted  servants  of  the  people.     Some  of  their  papers,  and  some  papers 
which  are  not  theirs,    give  us  to  understand, — for  the  papers  are  often 
understanding  a  great  many  things  of  which  they  know  nothing, — that  the 
Cabinet  meetings  held   during  the    last   fortnight  have  landed  us  in  this 
strange  position — that  the  men  who  were  against  all  reform  six  months  ago, 
are  now  warmly  engaged  hi  concocting  a  measure  which  shall  be  satisfactory 
to  the  great  body  of  the  Reformers  of  this  country.     My  opinion  is  this  : 
First  of  all,  that  the  papers  know  nothing  about  it ;  secondly,  that  the 


G6 

Government,  we  are  obliged  to  call  them  a  Government,  has  not  made  up 
its  inind  at  all  whether  it  will  bring  in  a  Reform  Bill  or  not.  In  point  of 
fact,  Lord  Derby  is  waiting  to  see  what  the  weather  will  be.  And  I  suppose 
they  will  postpone  their  decision  perhaps  for  some  few  weeks  to  come.  Who 
knows  but  that  they  will  wait  till  this  day  fortnight — or  yesterday 
fortnight?  Yesterday  fortnight,  on  Monday,  the  3rd  of  December, 
it  is  said  that,  following  the  example  of  Birmingham,  and  the  West 
Hiding,  and  Glasgow,  and  Manchester,  and  Edinburgh,  the  men  con- 
cerned in  the  trades  in  London  will  make  what  they  call  a  demonstration, 
that  is,  that  on  behalf  of  the  question  of  reform  they  will  assemble  and 
will  peacefully  walk  through  some  of  the  main  streets  of  the  West  End 
of  London,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  they  take  an  interest  in  this 
great  question.  I  know  nothing  of  the  arrangements,  except  what  I  see 
in  the  papers  ;  but  it  is  said  that  more  than  200,000  men  have  arranged 
to  walk  in  that  f  procession.  I  hear  on  no  mean  authority  that  certain 
persons  at  the  West  End  are  getting  up  a  little  alarm  at  what  may 
happen  on  the  3rd  of  December.  What  will  happen  we  all  know. 
If  the  police  do  not  interfere  to  break  the  peace,  the  peace  will  not  be 
broken.  And,  probably,  what  happened  on  the  last  occasion  may  be  of 
some  use  in  teaching  the  Home  Secretary  his  duty  on  this  occasion.  There 
are  persons,  doubtless,  so  credulous  and  so  willing  to  wish  well  of  everybody 
as  to  imagine  that  Lord  Derby's  Government  will  bring  in  a  satisfactory 
Ileform  Bill.  They  say  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
carried  Catholic  Emancipation  ;  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  repealed  the  Corn  Law  ;  and  why  should  not  Lord  Derby  pass 
a  Reform  Bill  ?  Why,  Lord  Derby  is  neither  the  Duke  of  Wellington  nor 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  He  deserted  both  those  eminent  men  in  1846,  rather  than 
unite  with  them  to  repeal  the  corn  lav/ ;  and  he  has  never  shown,  from 
that  hour  to  this,  one  atom  of  statesmanship,  or  one  spark  of  patriotism, 
that  would  lead  us  to  expect  that,  on  this  occasion,  he  would  turn  round 
and,  neglecting  his  party,  do  something  for  his  country.  It  is  all  very  well 
to  say  that  if  the  Government  bring  in  a  very  good  bill,  we  who  want  a 
very  good  bill  will  support  it.  But  it  is  no  use  dealing  in  phraseology  and 
platitudes  of  that  sort.  Look  at  the  Cabinet  of  Lord  Derby  ;  look  Avhat 
the  members  of  it  said  and  did  during  late  years,  and  during  the'  late  par- 
liamentary session.  Lord  Derby  has  told  us  that  it  was  his  mission  to  stem 
democracy  ;  his  friends  in  the  House  of  Commons  declared  last  session  that 
the  passing  of  that  bill  of  the  Government  would  be  to  hand  over  the 
country  to  the  democracy  of  the  working  classes.  Mr.  Disraeli,  in  his 
speeches,  was  ingenious  beyond  his  fellows,  as  indeed  he  generally  is,  for 
if  he  had  not  been  he  would  not  have  been  in  the  position  in  which  we  find 
him.  But  Mr.  Disraeli  was  anxious  to  cut  off  all  free  election  in  counties. 
He  is  of  opinion,  so  far  as  I  gathsr  from  his  speeches,  that  the  more  entirely 
the  county  representation  can  be  made  conterminous  with  the  great  estates 
of  the  peers  and  the  great  landowners,  the  more  entirely  it  will  be  after  his 
own  fashion  and  his  own  wishes.  There  is  no  more  perilous  idea  can  be 
entertained  by  any  statesman  ;  if  you  once  get  the  nominees  of  the  great 
landowners  and  the  lords  on  the  one  side  of  the  House,  and  the  repre- 


67 

sentatives  of  everybody  else  on  the  other  side  of  the  House,  the  beginning 
of  the  end  will  have  come.  And  whilst  Mr.  Disraeli  is  tickling  the  eara 
and  the  fancy  of  the  country  gentlemen  behind  him,  he  is  propounding  a 
plan  which,  if  it  were  carried  into  effect,  would  end  in  the  utter  extinction 
of  the  political  power  of  the  country  gentlemen  and  the  peerage  of  England. 
Mr.  Disraeli  and  Lord  Stanley  were  the  men  in  the  last  Derby  Government 
who  proposed  to  disfranchise  70,000  county  voters  whose  property  was 
within  the  limits  of  the  boroughs,  and  I  cannot  believe  that  men  who  made 
such  a  proposition  seven  or  eight  years  ago  can  produce  a  good  honest 
Reform  Bill  now.  Lord  Stanley  made  a  speech  during  the  discussions  on 
the  late  bill  which  his  party  and  their  press  said  was  unanswerable.  It  was 
a  speech  leading  to  this  conclusion,  that  he  would  give  no  votes  to  any  of 
the  working  class  until  he  saw,  by  the  distribution  of  seats,  that  those  votes 
could  be  made  of  no  use  to  them.  And  Lord  Stanley  lent  himself  to  an 
unhappy  trick,  intended,  as  it  appeared  to  us,  to  take  the  Government  and 
the  House  by  surprise,  and  by  which,  by  gaining  a  sudden  and  accidental 
division,  he  might  have  destroyed  both  the  bill  and  the  Government.  Lord 
Cranbourne  is  a  member  of  this  Cabinet, — Lord  Robert  Cecil  that  was  a 
short  time  ago, — Lord  Cranbourne  quarrelled  violently  with  Mr.  Gladstone 
because  Mr.  Gladstone  said  the  working  men  were  of  our  own  flesh  and 
blood.  He  treated  that  observation  very  much  in  the  same  way  that  the 
Carolinian  planter  and  slaveholder  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  would 
have  replied  to  my  friend  Mr.  Sumner  if  he  had  said  the  black  and  white 
were  equal  in  the  eye  of  God,  and  of  one  flesh  and  blood.  General 
Peel  is  a  member  of  this  Government,  and  he  protested  violently  against 
any  reduction  of  the  franchise,  as  indeed  did  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  who 
is,  I  think,  now  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  I  want  to  ask  you 
whether  from  these  men  you  are  to  expect,  you  are  to  wait  for,  with  anxious 
and  hopeful  looking  forward,  any  Reform  Bill  ?  And,  after  all  these 
speeches  had  been  made,  Lord  Derby  did  his  utmost  to  prevail  upon  Mr. 
Lowe  to  become  a  member  of  his  Cabinet.  If,  after  all  this,  they  were  to 
attempt  to  manufacture  and  introduce  a  Reform  Bill,  they  would  cover 
themselves  and  their  party  with  humiliation  and  with  certain  failure.  I 
know  that  in  this  country  politicians  change  sides ;  office  has  a  wonderful 
effect  upon  men.  I  suppose  that  there  are  men  here  such  as  were  described 
by  our  witty  friend,  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow,  in  painting  the  character  of  some 
politicians  in  America.  He  said  of  them  as  we  perhaps  may  say  of  Lord 
Derby  and  his  party, 

"  A  merciful  Providence  fashioned  them  hollow, 
On  purpose  that  they  might  their  principles  swallow." 

But,  notwithstanding  that  provision,  that  merciful  provision,  for  statesmen, 
I  confess  that  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Government  have  determined  to 
bring  in  a  Reform  Bill,  or  that  they  can  by  any  possibility  bring  in  a  bill 
which  the  Reformers  of  this  country  can  accept.  They  have  done  everything 
during  the  past  session  by  fraudulent  statements — by  insiilts  to  the  people 
— by  the  most  evident  baseness  of  party  action — to  destroy  the  moderate 
and  honest  attempt  of  Lord  Russell  to  improve  the  representation.  And  I 
do  not  believe  that  in  one  short  year  they  can  turn  round  ;  raid,  capacious 


G8 

;y  be  the  internal  cavity  of  the  Tory  Government,  I  think  they  canno 
in  one  short  year  swallow  all  their  Conservative  principles.  If  a  man  were 
to  tell  me  that  he  had  a  broth  composed  of  half-a-dozen  most  poisonous 
ingredients,  and  that  he  could  make  of  it  a  most  wholesome  dish,  I  think  I 
should  not  believe  him.  And  if  he  tells  me  that  Derby,  and  Disraeli,  and 
Stanley,  and  Cranbourne,  and  General  Peel,  and  the  rest  of  them,  after  the 
speeches  to  which  I  listened  six  months  ago,  are  about  to  produce  a  whole- 
some, and  salutary,  and  liberal  Reform  Bill,  I  must  ask  him  not  to  impose 
for  a  moment  on  my  understanding.  The  enemies  of  the  bill  of  1866  cannot 
become  the  honest  friends  of  reform  in  1867 — and  the  conspirators  of  the 
session  which  has  just  expired  cannot  become  honourable  statesmen  in 
the  session  which  is  about  to  commence.  My  opinion  may  be  no  better 
than  that  of  any  other  man.  This,  however,  may  be  good  advice — that  all 
reformers  should  be  on  the  watch,  for  there  are  enemies  enough  to  our 
ciuse,  and  false  friends  enough  to  convince  us  that  it  is  by  no  means  out  of 
danger.  But  the  next  bill — what  must  it  be  ?  One  thing  I  think  we  have 
a  right  to  insist  upon,  that  the  next  bill  which  is  introduced  by  a  Liberal 
and  Reform  Government  shall  be  in  its  suffrage  based  upon  the  ancient 
borough  franchise  of  the  country.  Hoiisehold  or  rating  suffrage  has  existed 
for  centuries  in  our  parishes.  It  has  existed  for  many  years  in  our  municipal 
corporations.  It  has  never  been  found  either  in  parish  or  corporation  to  be 
destructive  of  the  interests  of  the  people  of  those  circumscribed  districts  of 
the  country.  I  say,  therefore,  that  we  ought  to  stand  by  the  ancient  Con- 
stitution of  England.  I  believe  Lord  Russell,  speaking  of  him  in  his 
private  capacity,  would  be  in  favour  of  extending  the  borough  franchise,  at 
least  to  the  limits  of  the  municipal  franchise.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
tint  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  would  approve  of  such  a  measure.  Yv'e  know 
t'.iat  the  late  Attorney-General,  one  of  the  most  eminent  lawyers 
and  one  of  the  most  accomplished  members  of  the  House  of  Common*, 
publicly  and  openly  expressed  himself  in  favour  of  that  change.  I 
believe  the  middle  class,  as  a  rule,  the  Liberal  portion  of  the  middle  class, 
would  have  no  objection  to  see  the  franchise  extended  to  all  householders  in 
boroughs.  I  believe  if  it  were  ao  extended  we  should  arrive  at  a  point  at 
which,  so  long  at  any  rate  as  any  of  us  are  permitted  to  meddle  with  the 
politics  of  our  country,  no  further  change  would  be  demanded.  I  therefore 
am  entirely  in  favour  of  it,  because  I  believe  it  to  be  wise  in  itself,  and 
becaiise  it  is  the  ancient  borough  franchise  of  this  kingdom.  I  am  in  favour 
of  the  constitution.  I  would  stand  by  it ;  wherever  it  afforded  support  for 
freedom  I  would  march  in  its  track.  That  track  is  so  plain  that  the  way- 
faring man,  though  a  fool,  need  not  err  therein.  I  would  be  guided  by  its 
lights.  They  have  been  kept  burning  by  great  men  among  our  forefathers 
for  many  generations.  Our  only  safety  in  this  warfare  is  in  adhering  to  the 
ancient  and  noble  constitution  of  our  country.  And  when  we  have  restored 
it  to  its  ancient  strength,  and  invited  the  great  body  of  the  people  to  take 
part  in  political  power,  then  the  House  of  Commons  will  be  the  servant  of 
the  nation  and  not  its  master,  and  it  will  do  the  bidding,  not  of  a  small,  a 
limited,  often  an  ignorant,  necessarily  a  selfish  class,  but  the  bidding  of  a 
great  and  noble  people. 


69 


SPEECH    IN    LONDON. 


ON  the  4th  December,  the  day  following  the  great  Trades'  Demon- 
stration in  London  in  favour  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  Mr.  Bright 
addressed  a  crowded  and  most  enthusiastic  audience  in  St.  James's 
Hall.  He  said:— 

It  is  about  eiglit  years  since,  in  a  speech  which  I  delivered  on  the 
question  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  that  I  took  the  opportunity  of  giving 
what  I  thought  was  somewhat  wholesome  counsel  to  the  unenfranchised 
working  men  of  this  country.  I  told  them  that  the  monopolists  of  political 
power  in  this  country  would  not  willingly  surrender  that  power  or  any 
portion  of  it ;  and  further,  that  no  class  that  was  excluded  could  rely  upon 
the  generosity  of  any  other  class  for  that  justice  which  it  demanded,  and 
that,  therefore,  although  large  numbers  of  the  middle  class  were  then,  and 
are  now,  in  favour  of  the  enfranchisement  of  a  large  number  of  the  working 
class,  yet  that  they  would  not  make  that  groat  effort  which  is  necessary  to 
wring  political  power  from  those  who  now  hold  it  and  to  extend  it  to  those 
who  are  now  and  were  then  excluded  from  it.  I  said  that  if  the  working 
men  wished  for  political  power  they  had  only  to  ask  for  it  in  a  manner  to 
show  the  universality  of  their  desire  and  the  union  and  the  power  which 
they  were  able  to  bring  to  bear  upon  it ;  and  I  recollect  particularly  making 
a  siiggestion  that  involved  me  in  a  good  deal  of  unfriendly  criticism,  namely, 
that  I  thought  the  time  had  come,  or  would  soon  come,  when  it  would  be 
the  duty  of  the  working  class  to  make  use  of  that  great  organisation  of 
theirs  which  extends  over  the  whole  country — the  organisation  of  trades 
and  friendly  societies  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  to  bear  upon  the  Govern- 
ment the  entire  poAver  of  their  just  demand.  I  said,  further,  that  I  believed 
one  year  only  of  the  united  action  of  the  working  class  through  this  existing 
organisation  would  wholly  change  the  aspect  of  the  question  of  Eeform. 
Now  it  appears  that  the  wholesome  counsel  which  I  gave  eight  years  ago 
has  become  the  counsel  of  all  those  who  are  in  favour  of  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  working  man,  and  that  counsel  has  been  adopted  recently  to  a  large 
extent,  and  every  man  in  the  kingdom  feels  that  the  aspect  of  the  question 
has  been  wholly  changed.  But,  as  lias  been  already  said  to-night,  it  is  very 
difficult  to  please  those  by  whom  we  are  opposed ;  and,  as  was  said  eight 
years  ago,  so  it  is  said  now,  that  it  is  very  undesirable  that  associations  like 
these,  that  were  not  formed  for  political  piirposes,  should  be  worked  for 
political  ends.  That  is  a  matter  of  which  the  members  of  these  societies  must 
be  held  to  be  the  best  judges.  We  have  known  other  societies  that  did  not 
profess  to  bs  political,  which  have  entered  largely  into  political  matters.  I 


70 

know  that  some  years  ago  nearly  all  tlie  agricultural  societies  of  the  country 
were  converted  into  political  societies,  for  the  purpose  of  sustaining  an  Act 
of  Parliament  which  denied  an  honest  and  fair  supply  of  food  to  the  people 
of  this  country  ;  and  even  now,  when  the  agricultural  societies  and  farmers' 
clubs  meet,  we  hear  that  sort  of  curious  and  confused  political  discussion 
which  takes  place  when  the  country  gentlemen  and  the  county  members 
make  speeches  to  their  tenantry  and  county  supporters.  But  these  critics 
of  ours  say  that  this  measure — the  combination  of  the  trades'  unions  for 
political  purposes — is  one  that  excites  their  fears,  and  is  of  a  very  formidable 
nature.  It  was  precisely  because  it  would  be  of  a  formidable  nature  that  I 
first  recommended  it.  The  fact  is,  that  the  millions  can  scarcely  move,  but 
that  the  few  who  are  timid  and  in  some  degree  ungenerous  in  this  matter, 
feel  themselves  alarmed ;  but  you  cannot  help  being  numerous.  If  you  had 
had  better  government  during  the  last  100  years — if  the  land  had  been 
more  in  the  hands  of  the  people  and  less  in  the  hands  of  a  small  class — if 
you  had  had  fewer  wars,  lighter  taxes,  better  instruction,  and  a  freer  trade, 
one-half  of  those  in  this  country  who  are  now  called  the  working  class  would 
have  been,  in  comfort  and  position,  equal  to  those  whom  we  call  the  middle 
class.  But  this  is  your  great  difficulty  now,  and  it  is  the  great  difficulty  of 
our  opponents — you  are  too  numerous,  they  think,  to  be  let  in  with  safety, 
and  they  are  finding  out  that  you  are  too  numerous  to  be  kept  oxit  without 
danger.  But  if  these  associations  and  the  combinations  of  these  societies  are 
formidable,  who  have  made  them  formidable  ?  These  societies  took  no  part 
in  political  movement  until  they  were  challenged  to  it  by  the  speeches,  the 
resolutions,  the  divisions,  and  the  acts  of  a  great  party  in  the  Parliament  of  the 
kingdom.  Did  they  fail  to  have  fact  and  argument  in  favour  of  the  change 
proposed  last  session  ?  No ;  but  fact  and  argument  had  no  effect  upon 
whatever  there  is  of  reasoning  power  in  the  ranks  of  the  Tory  party.  Did 
they  think  that  the  working  men  of  this  country — those  who  built  this 
great  city — those  who  covered  this  country  with  great  cities — those  who 
have  cultivated  every  acre  of  its  area — who  have  made  this  country  a  name 
of  power  through  all  time  and  throughout  the  whole  world—  did  they  for 
one  moment  imagine  that  you  would  lie  down  and  submit,  without  raising 
your  voice  against  them,  to  the  scandalous  and  unjust  imputations  that 
were  heaped  upon  you?  Did  they  think  that  you  would  be  silent  for  ever, 
and  patient  for  ever,  under  a  perpetual  exclusion  from  the  benefits  of  the 
constitution  of  your  country  ?  If  they  are  dissatisfied  with  this  movement, 
what  would  they  have?  Would  they  wish  that,  as  men  did  fifty  or  sixty 
years  ago,  instead  of  making  open  demonstration  of  your  opinions,  you  should 
conspire  with  the  view  of  changing  the  political  constitution  of  your  country  ? 
Would  they  like  that  you  should  meet  in  secret  societies,  that  you  should 
administer  to  each  other  illegal  oaths,  that  you  should  undertake  the  task 
of  midnight  drilling,  that  you  should  purchase  throughout  London  and  the 
provinces  a  supply  of  arms,  that  you  should  in  this  frightful  and  terrible 
manner  endeavour  to  menace  the  Government,  and  to  wring  from  them  a 
concession  of  your  rights  ?  But  surely  one  of  two  modes  must  be  taken.  If 
there  be  a  deep  and  wide-spread  sentiment  of  injustice  no  longer  tolerable, 
then,  judging  from  all  past  history  of  all  people,  one  of  two  modes  will  be 


71 

taken,  either  that  mode  so  sad  and  so  odious  of  secret  conspiracy,  or  that 
mode  so  grand  and  so  noble  which  you  have  adopted.  You  have  at  this 
moment  across  the  Channel,  if  the  reports  which  the  Government  sanction 
are  true,  an  exhibition  of  a  plan  which  I  deplore  and  condemn.  You  have 
there  secret  societies,  and  oaths,  and  drilling,  and  arms,  and  menaces  of 
violence  and  insurrection.  Is  there  any  man  in  England  who  would  like  to 
see  the  working  men  of  Great  Britain  driven  to  any  such  course  in  defence 
or  in  maintenance  of  their  rights  ?  Well,  I  hold,  then,  that  all  men  in  this 
country,  whatever  be  their  abstract  opinions  on  this  question  of  a  wide 
extension  of  the  suffrage,  should  really  rejoice  at  the  noble  exhibition,  the 
orderly  and  grand  exhibition  of  opinion  which  has  been  made  by  the  work- 
ing men  of  England  and  Scotland  during  the  past  three  months.  I  said  that 
if  there  be  a  grievance — a  deep-seated  sentiment  that  there  is  a  grievance — 
there  must  necessarily  be  a  voice  to  express  and  to  proclaim  it.  What  is 
the  grievance  of  which  you  complain  ?  You  are  the  citizens,  the  native 
inhabitants  of  a  country  which  is  called  constitutional;  and  what  is  meant 
by  that  is  that  your  Government  is  not  the  despotic  Government  of  a 
monarch,  or  tho  oligarchical  Government  of  an  oligarchy ;  but  that  it  is 
a  Government,  a  large  and  essential  portion  of  which  is  conducted  by 
honestly  elected  representatives  of  the  people  ;  and  the  grievance  is  this  : 
that  this  constitution,  so  noble  in  its  outline  and  so  noble  in  its  purpose,  is 
defaced  and  deformed,  and  that  when  you  look  at  it  it  seems  in  this  respect 
absolutely  worse  than  any  other  representative  constitution  existing  in  the 
world.  For  I  believe  there  is  no  representation  whatsoever  at  this  moment 
in  America  or  in  Europe  that  is  so  entirely  deformed  from  its  natural,  just, 
and  beautiful  proportions,  as  is  the  representative  system  of  this  country. 
What  can  be  more  clear  than  this — that  the  aristocracy  of  land  and  of 
wealth  usurp  the  power  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament  ?  The  Lords  repre- 
sent themselves,  and  generally  the  great  landowners,  with  great  fidelity. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  we  must  admit  and  deplore  that  at  least  one-half  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  in  fast  alliance  with  the  majority  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  Now,  I  have  said  before — I  repeat  it  again — that  there  is  no  security 
whatsoever  for  liberty  under  any  Government  unless  there  be  an  essential 
power  in  a  fair  representation  of  the  nation.  An  illustrious  man,  the 

founder  of  the  great  province,  and  now    the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania 

William  Penn — in  the  preface  to    his  constitution  for  that  province — a  con- 
stitution of  the  widest  and  most  generous  freedom — uses  these  words  : 

"Any  Government  is  free  to  the  people  under  it,  whatever  be  the  frame 
where  the  laws  rule,  and  the  people  are  a  party  to  the  laws  ;  and  more  than 
this  is  tyranny,  oligarchy,  or  confusion. "  Now,  let  us  ask  ourselves,  can  it 
be  fairly  said,  can  it  be  said  without  the  most  direct  falsehood,  that  the 
people  of  this  country,  through  the  House  of  Commons,  are  really  a  party  to 
the  laws  that  are  made  ?  It  is  not  at  all  disputed  that  only  sixteen  out  of 
every  one  hundred  men  are  now  on  the  electoral  rolls,  and  are  able 
all  other  circumstances  favouring,  to  give  their  vote  at  a  general  election 
and  it  is  not  disputed  that  half  the  House  of  Commons — that  an  absolute 
majority  of  that  House — is  elected  by  a  mimber  of  electors  not  exceeding 
altogether  three  men  out  of  every  hundred  men  in  the  United  Kingdom. 


I  have  taken  the  trouble  to  make  a  little  calculation  from  the  facts  con- 
tained in  a  very  useful  book  published  by  a  very  old  friend  of  mine,  Mr. 
Acland,  called  the  "Imperial  Poll- Book, ;>  from  which  a  great  amount  of 
valuable  information  may  be  had  upon  this  question.  I  have  taken  out  the 
number  of  votes  given  at  the  last  contested  election  that  has  been  held  for 
every  borough  and  county  in  the  United  Kingdom  since  the  passing  of  the 
Preform  Bill,  and  I  find  that  there  being,  so  far  as  I  know,  at  least  one  con- 
test in  every  place  since  that  time,  the  whole  number  of  votes  given  at  the 
contest  in  every  borough  and  county  is  short  of  the  number  of  900,000, 
which  is  about  one  in  eight  of  the  men  in  the  country  ;  and  if  you  deduct 
from  that  number  the  double  votes,  that  is  the  men  who  vote  for  more  than 
one  county,  or  who  vote  for  a  county  and  a  borough,  in  all  probability  there 
would  not  be  registered  more  than  800,000  votes  at  a  general  election  in  the 
United  Kingdom  where  there  was  a  contest  in  every  county  and  in  every 
borough.  But  I  take  the  election  of  1859,  which  is  the  last  tlie  particulars 
of  which  are  given  in  the  "  Imperial  Poll-Book,"  and  I  find  there  that  the 
whole  number  of  votes  registered,  so  far  as  I  could  make  them  out,  at  the 
general  election  of  1859,  was  under  370, 000.  Now,  deduct  the  double  votes 
from  this,  and  probably  there  would  not  be  at  that  general  election,  or  at 
the  general  election  of  last  year,  more  than  300,000  or  820,000  men  who 
recorded  their  votes  ?  Some  other  allowances  must  be  made.  There  are 
boroughs,  and  there  may  be  counties,  in  which  the  opinion  falls  so  much  on 
one  side  that  there  could  be  no  chance  of  a  contest.  For  example,  in  the 
borough  which  I  am  permitted  to  represent  there  would  be  no  contest,  and 
therefore  that  borough  would  not  supply  any  figures  to  those  figures  which 
I  am  quoting.  But  there  are  many  boroughs,  as  we  all  know,  in  which 
there  is  no  contest ;  in  some  boroughs  there  is  no  contest  because  there  is 
no  freedom  of  election.  And  there  are  many  counties  in  which  there  is  no 
contest  because  there  is  no  freedom  of  election  in  those  counties.  But  I  quote 
these  numbers  to  show  to  you  that  when  the  Queen  orders  through  her 
Ministers  what  is  generally  called  an  appeal  to  the  country,  it  is  at  the  very 
utmost  an  appeal  to  800,000  electors,  and  in  all  probability  the  appeal  is 
answered  by  registered  voters  numbering  from  300,000  to  400,000. 
Well,  after  this,  then,  I  undertake  to  say  that  the  people  are  not, 
in  the  sense  of  our  constitution,  a  party  to  the  laws,  and  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  Kingdom,  in  the  sense  indicated  in  the  quota- 
tion that  I  have  made  from  William  Perm's  preface  to  his  constitu- 
tion, is  not  free  to  this  people.  And  let  me  tell  you  what  doubtless  many 
men  have  not  thought  of,  that  there  is  no  form  of  government  much  worse 
than  the  Government  of  a  sham  representation.  A  Parliament  like  our 
Parliament  has  members  enough,  and  just  enough  of  the  semblance  of  repre- 
sentation, to  make  it  safe  for  it  to  do  almost  anything  it  likes  against  the 
true  interests  of  the  nation.  There  is  nothing  so  safe  as  a  Parliament  like 
this  for  the  commission  of  what  is  evil.  There  is  not  representation  enough 
to  make  it  truly  responsible  to  the  intelligence,  and  the  virtue,  and  the 
opinions  of  the  nation.  Take  a  case  which  is  in  the  recollection  of  all  of  us. 
Is  there  any  man  in  the  world  who  believes  for  a  moment  that  any  monarch 
that  ever  sat  on  the  English  throne  would  have  dared  in  1815  to  have  passed 


73 

the  corn  law — to  have  brought  into  action  in  this  city  of  London,  horse, 
foot,  and  artillery — to  have  surrounded  his  own  palace — and  to  have  beaten 
off  the  people  who  were  protesting  against  the  enactment  of  that  law  ?  But 
the  Parliament  of  England  did  that,  and  a  Parliament  of  landowners,  for 
the  express  and  only  purpose  of  increasing  their  own  rents  by  the  sacrifice 
of  the  comfort,  the  plenty,  the  health,  and  the  life  of  the  great  body  of  the 
people.  But  to  come  only  to  the  last  session  of  Parliament.  We  will  not 
go  back  to  the  time  before  the  Reform  Act.  We  will  only  go  to  the  last  session 
of  Parliament.  Look  at  their  responsibility  then,  and  their  sense  of 
responsibility.  Look  at  the  moderation  of  that  bill  which  was  brought  in 
by  the  late  Government.  Was  it  possible  to  have  proposed  a  more  moderate 
measure  than  that  of  the  late  Government  ?  Well,  but  what  happened  ?  A 
Parliament  of  landowners  and  of  rich  men,  who  have  wholly  despised  that 
great  national  opinion  which  has  been  exhibited  during  the  last  three  or 
four  months,  resisted  that  measure  with  a  pertinacity  never  exceeded,  and 
with  an  amount  of  intrigue,  and  I  say  of  unfairness  to  the  Government, 
which  they  durst  not  for  one  single  night  have  attempted  if  they  had  felt 
any  real  responsibility  to  the  people  of  this  country.  And  now  they  resist 
np  to  this  moment,  and  for  aught  I  know  may  resist  when  they  meet  at  the 
beginning  of  February  next,  and  they  may  possibly  resist  until  the  dis- 
content which  is  now  so  general  shall  become  universal,  and  that  which  is 
now  only  a  great  exhibition  of  opinion  may  become  necessarily  and  inevitably 
a  great  and  menacing  exhibition  of  force.  And  these  opponents  of  ours,  many 
of  them  in  Parliament  openly,  and  many  of  them  secretly  in  the  press,  have 
charged  ns  with  being  the  promoters  of  a  dangerous  excitement.  They  say 
we  are  the  source  of  the  danger  which  threatens  ;  and  they  have  absolutely 
the  effrontery  to  charge  me  with  being  the  friend  of  public  disorder.  I  am 
one  of  the  people.  Surely,  if  there  be  one  thing  in  a  free  country  more  clear 
than  another,  it  is  that  any  one  of  the  people  may  speak  openly  to  the  people. 
If  I  speak  to  the  people  of  their  rights,  and  indicate  to  them  the  way  to 
secure  them — if  I  spealt  to  the  monopolists  of  power  of  their  danger — am  I 
not  a  wise  counsellor — both  to  the  people  and  to  their  rulers  ?  Suppose  I  stood 
at  the  foot  of  Vesuvius  or  Etna,  and  1  saw  a  hamlet,  or  a  homestead  stand- 
ing upon  its  slope,  and  I  said  to  the  dwellers  in  that  hamlet,  or  in  that 
homestead,  You  see  that  vapour  which  ascends  from  the  summit  of  the 
mountain.  That  vapour  may  become  a  dense,  black  smoke  that  will  obscure 
the  sky.  You  see  that  trickling  of  lava  from  the  crevices  or  fissures  in  the 
side  of  the  mountain.  That  trickling  of  lava  may  become  a  river  of  fire. 
You  hear  that  muttering  in  the  bowels  of  the  mountain.  That  muttering 
may  become  a  bellowing  thunder,  the  voice  of  a  violent  convulsion  that  may 
shake  half  a  continent.  You  know  that  at  your  feet  is  the  grave  of  great 
cities  for  which  there  is  no  resurrection,  as  history  tells  iis  dynasties  and 
aristocracies  have  passed  away  and  their  name  has  been  known  no  more  for 
ever.  If  1  say  this  to  the  dwellers  upon  the  slope  of  the  mountain,  and  if 
there  comes  hereafter  a  catastrophe  which  makes  the  world  to  shudder,  am 
I  responsible  for  that  catastrophe  ?  - 1  did  not  build  the  mountain,  or  fill  it 
with  explosive  materials.  I  merely  warned  the  men  that  were  in  danger. 
So,  now,  it  is  not  I  who  am  stimulating  men  to  the  violent  pursuit  of  their 


74 

acknowledged  constitutional  rights.  We  are  merely  about  our  lawful  busi- 
ness— and  you  are  the  citizens  of  a  country  that  calls  itself  free,  yet  you  are 
citizens  to  whom  is  denied  the  greatest  and  the  first  blessing  of  the 
constitution  uuder  which  you  live.  If  the  truth  must  be  told,  the  Tory 
party  is  the  turbulent  party  of  this  nation.  I  left  the  last  session  of 
Parliament  just  about  the  time  when  the  present  Ministers,  successful 
in  their  intrigues,  acceded  to  office — I  left  the  Parliament  with  a  feeling  of 
sadness,  of  disgust,  and  of  apprehension.  I  said  to  myself,  I  may  as  well 
judge  of  the  future  by  the  past.  The  Parliament  of  England  will  not  do 
justice  to  the  people  until  there  happens  something  that  will  suddenly  open 
their  eyes.  I  remembered  what  took  place  id"  the  year  1829  when  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  said  :  Either  give  political  power  and  representation 
through  Catholic  members  to  the  Catholics  of  the  United  Kingdom,  or 
encounter  the  peril  and  loss  of  civil  war  in  Ireland.  Up  to  that  moment 
Parliament  had  refused  to  do  it.  Then  Parliament  consented  and  the  thing 
was  done.  In  1832  you  were  within  twenty -four  hours  of  revolution  in  this 
country.  This  great  class  which  sits  omnipotent  in  one  House,  and  hardly 
less  so  in  the  other,  might  then,  and  probably  would  have  been  extinguished, 
and  what  there  would  have  been  left  except  the  people  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine.  In  1846,  although  every  intelligent  man  in  every  country  in  the 
world  admitted  the  justice  and  force  of  our  arguments  against  the  corn  law, 
still  it  required  the  occurrence  of  a  crushing  and  desolating  famine  in 
Ireland— a  famine  \vhich  destroyed  as  many  lives  in  that  country  as 
would  have  been  destroyed  by  a  great  war,  and  which  drove  into 
exile  as  many  of  the  people  of  that  island  rs  would  have  been  driven  into 
exile  by  the  most  cruel  and  relentless  conquest— it  required  all  that  before 
the  Parliament  of  England,  the  men  amongst  whom  I  sit,  and  whose  faces 
are  as  familiar  to  me  as  those  of  any  person  whom  I  know  in  life — I  say  that 
it  required  all  that  before  Parliament  would  consent  to  give  tip  that  in- 
tolerable wrong  of  taxing  the  bread  of  an  industrious  people.  Now,  suppose 
that  fche  bill  which  was  brought  into  the  House  last  session  as  a  franchise 
bill  only — which  was  done,  as  was  admitted  by  Lord  Piussell,  in  adoption 
of  advice  which  I  had  publicly  given  to  the  Government,  and  which  advice 
I  believe  was  eminently  sound,  and  ought  to  be  followed  whenever  this 
question  is  dealt  with  again  by  a  Liberal  and  honest  Government — I  say, 
suppose  that  that  bill,  instead  of  being  met  with  every  kind  of  unfair  and 
ungenerous  opposition,  had  been  wisely  accepted  by  the  House  of  Commons 
and  become  law,  what  would  have  been  the  state  of  the  country  during  the 
present  autumn  and  winter.  It  wonld  have  been  one  of  rejoicing  and  con- 
gratulation everywhere.  Not  because  the  bill  included  everybody  and 
satisfied  everybody,  but  all  working  men  would  have  felt  that  the  barrier 
created  at  the  Reform  Bill,  if  not  absolutely  broken  down,  was  at  least  so 
much  lowered  that  the  exclusion  was  much  less  general  and  less  offensive. 
You  would  have  had  this  result,  that  we,  the  people  in  these  islands,  would 
have  been  no  longer  two  nations.  We  shoiild  have  felt  more — that  hence- 
forth we  are  one  people.  Every  element  of  strength  in  the  country  would 
have  been  immeasurably  strengthened,  and  there  would  have  been  given 
even  to  the  humblest  of  the  unenfranchised  a  feeling  of  hope  which  would 


75 

have  led  him  to  believe  in,  and  to  strive  after,  something  higher  and  better 
than  that  to  which  he  had  hitherto  been  able  to  attain.  Now,  who  prevented 
this  ?  Surely  we  did  not  prevent  it.  We  who  thought  we  were  speaking 
for  the  general  good  of  the  people,  we  accepted  the  measure  with  an 
honourable  sincerity  and  fidelity.  We  said  that  it  is  good  to  the  point  to 
which  it  steps  forward.  It  is  perfectly  honest;  it  is  no  trick  or  subterfuge. 
It  will  give  satisfaction  to  some  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  it  will  give  that 
which  is  as  great  a  boon — it  will  give  hope  to  millions  whom  it  does  not 
include— and  therefore,  in  perfect  honourableness,  we  accepted  that  measure; 
and  who  opposed  it  ?  None  other  could  effectually  oppose  it  than  Lord 
Derby  and  the  party  of  which  he  is  the  acknowledged  and  trusted  leader. 
They  and  he  opposed  and  rejected  that  bill,  and  they  and  he  are  responsible 
for  what  has  been  done  since  in  the  country  as*  a  necessary  and  inevitable 
consequence  of  that  rejection.  Lord  Derby  now  stands  nearest  to  the  throne, 
and  1  venture  to  say  that  he  is  now  not  a  strength  but  a  weakness  to 
that  throne.  By  his  conduct — and  by  the  conduct  of  his  party,  which  he 
adopts — he  thwarted  at  once  the  benevolent  intentions  of  the  Crown  and 
just  expectations  of  the  people.  I  confess  that  I  am  astonished  at  the 
conduct  of  the  Tory  party  in  this  matter.  When  the  bill  was  introduced 
into  the  House  of  Commons,  it  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  very  last  that  any 
statesmen  with  a  spark  of  sense  or  honesty  could  offer  any  opposition  to,  and  t 
did  not  believe  that  on  the  other  side  of  the  House  there  was,  I  will  say,  if 
you  like,  bitter  partisanship  or  stupidity  enough  to  induce  them  to  fight  a  com- 
bined battle  with  all  who, would  join  them  for  the  purpose  of  rejecting  that 
bill.  Now,  one  would  suppose  that  the  present  Government  had  troubles 
enough  on  hand  in  what  is  called  the  sister  country  without  urging  the 
people  to  excitement  here.  Ireland,  as  I  have  described  it  before  Irish- 
men, is  the  favoured  field  on  which  all  the  policy  of  the  Tory  party  has 
been  exhibited,  displayed,  and  tried.  Well,  in  Ireland  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  is  suspended.  Individual  liberty,  except  by  consent  of  the  Executive, 
i"3  abolished ;  troops  are  pouring  into  the  country ;  ironclads,  it  is  said,  are 
ordered  to  the  coast  to  meet  some,  I  hope  and  believe,  imaginary  foe — and 
the  country  gentlemen  and  their  families  are  reported  to  be  fleeing  from  their 
ancestral  homes  to  find  refuge  in  garrison  towns  ;  and  all  this  is  the  magni- 
ficent result  of  the  policy  of  the  party  of  which  Lord  Derby  is  the  head  and 
hope.  And  now  even,  up  to  this  very  last  session  of  Parliament,  that  party 
had  no  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  but  that  ancient,  and  rude,  and 
savage  remedy,  the  remedy  of  military  force.  But  with  all  this  in  Ireland, 
as  I  hope  and  believe,  greatly  exaggerated  by  some  public  writers,  yet  still 
with  enough  to  cause  pain  and  anxiety,  was  that  a  judicious  course  for  the 
present  party  in  power  to  create  a  great  excitement  in  Great  Britain  ?  I  say 
that  Lord  Derby,  as  the  representative  of  his  party  in  Parliament,  is 
himself  the  fomenter  of  discord,  and  that  his  party,  and  not  our  party, 
is  at  this  moment  the  turbulent  element  in  English  political  society. 
And  let  me  tell  this  party — I  tell  them  nothing  from  this  platform  that 
I  have  not  told  them  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons — let  me 
tell  them  that  this  question  will  not  sleep.  Some  months  ago  there  was  a 
remarkable  convention  held  in  Switzerland  composed  of  men  of  eminence 


76 

and  character,  by  which  an  address  or  memorial  TOM  prepared  and  forwarded 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  congratulating  them  upon  the  close 
of  their  gigantic  struggle,  and  upon  the  establishment  of  universal  freedom 
throughout  the  wide  bounds  of  the  republic.  There  was  a  passage  in  that 
memorial,  an  expression  of  true  philosophy  and  true  statesmanship,  to  this 
effect :  "Unfinished  questions  have  no  pity  for  the  repose  of  nations."  That 
referred  to  the  great  question  of  negro  slavery  ;  but  it  is  just  as  true  when 
it  is  applied  to  the  question  before  us,  where  from  five  to  six  millions  of 
grown  men  in  this  United  Kingdom,  under  a  constitutional  Government  and 
with  a  representative  system,  are  shut  out  directly  and  purposely  from  that 
constitution  and  representation.  This  great  question  which  we  are  debating 
to-night  is  au  unfinished  question,  and,  as  the  Swiss  express  it,  it  will  have 
no  pity  on  the  repose  of  this  nation  until  it  is  a  finished  question.  I  observed 
to-day,  in  a  newspaper  considered  by  some  to  be  of  great  authority,  that  the 
working  men  are  supposed  by  what  are  called  our  betters — for  that  paper 
only  writes  for  our  betters — they  are  supposed  to  have  now  done  enough, 
and  they  are  exhorted — by  the  very  hand,  probably,  which  during  the  whole 
of  the  last  session  of  Parliament  was  doing  all  it  could  against  them — to  stand 
still  and  wait  for  the  action  of  Parliament.  Well,  but  it  is  the  same  Parliament , 
it  is  the  same  House  of  Commons  which  I  left  with  sadness  and  apprehension 
in  July  last.  There  are  in  it  j^etthemen  who,  on  our  side  of  the  House,  betrayed 
the  cause  which  they  were  supposed  to  sit  there  to  defend,  and  the  only 
change  that  we  know  of  is,  that  the  men  who  threw  out  with  all  terms  of 
ignominy  the  bill  which  we  wished  to  pass  last  session,  are  now  and  will  be 
in  February  next — if  they  do  not  break  in  pieces  before — they  will  be  then 
on  the  Treasury  bench,  and  will  take  that  leading  and  authoritative  position 
in  the  House  which  belongs  to  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown.  Now,  I  differ 
from  this  writer  altogether  ;  I  would  not  put  any  confidence  in  the  course 
to  be  taken  by  this  House  of  Commons  if  I  were  a  man  unfranchised  and 
asking  for  a  vote.  I  should  like  them  to  tell  me  that  they  had  wholly 
repented  of  the  cheers  with  which  they  met  all  those  vile  and  A'iolent  impu- 
tations upon  your  character.  My  opinion  is  this  :  that  your  duty,  your 
obvious  duty — a  duty  from  which  you  cannot  escape — is  to  go  on  as  you 
have  begun,  to  perfect  in  every  part  of  the  country  your  organisation  in 
favour  of  your  enfranchisement.  It  is  to  bring  every  society  with  which 
you  are  connected,  to  give  itself  for  a  time — it  will  only  l;e  a  short  time — to 
the  working  out  of  your  political  redemption.  I  should  advise  you,  whether 
you  are  supporters  of  the  Reform  League  in  London,  or  are  connected  in  any 
way  with  the  Reform  Union  of  Manchester  or  any  similar  association,  to 
establish  a  system  of  small,  but  weekly  or  monthly  contributions.  Do  not 
allow  my  friend  Mr.  Bealcs — or  my  ancient  friend  and  political  brother,  Mr. 
George  Wilson,  of  Manchester — do  not  allow  them  to  want  the  means  to 
carry  on  and  direct  the  great  societies  of  which  they  are  chiefs.  And  let  me 
beg  of  you,  more  than  all  else,  to  have  no  jealousies  amongst  each  other. 
Give  our  chairman  his  due  ;  give  Mr.  Ik-ales  and  the  council  their  due  ;  give 
every  man  who,  with  a  single  eye  to  this  grcit  question,  is  working  zealously 
in  your  cause,  his  due,  and  help  in  every  way  you  can  every  honest  endea- 
vour to  bring  this  grc  at  national  question  k>  p-.;ch  a  solid  and  final  issue, 


77 

that  it  shall  no  longer  disturb  the  repoaa  of  this  nation.  And  lastly,  I  beg 
of  you  to  rise  to  something  like  a  just  contemplation  of  what  the  great 
issue  is  for  which  you  are  contending.  It  is  to  make  you  citizens  of  one  of 
the  noblest  nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  of  a  nation  which  has  a  grand 
history  in  the  past,  and  which  I  trust,  and  partly  through  your  help,  will 
have  a  still  grander  history  in  the  future.  Let  rne  beg  of  you,  then,  and  it  is 
the  last  word.  I  may  speak  to  you  to-night,  that  in  all  you  do  you  may  be 
animated  by  a  great  and  noble  spirit,  for  you  have  set  your  hands  and 
hearts  to  a  great  and  noble  work. 


AT  a  later  period  of  the  Meeting,  on  the  motion  for  a  vote  of  thanks 
to  the  Chairman,  Mr.  Bright  took  occasion  to  express  his  dissent 
from  observations  made  by  one  of  the  speakers  in  reference  to  the 
Queen.  He  spoke  as  follows  : — 

1  rise  for  one  moment  before  the  vote  of  thanks  is  put.  I  need  hardly 
say  that  I  entirely  concur  in  it,  and  I  hope  it  will  receive  the  unanimous 
support  of  the  meeting;  but  I  rise  for  the  purpose  of  making  in  one  sentence 
a  reference  to  a  portion  of  the  speech  of  one  of  the  speakers,  which  I  hope 
I  did  not  fully  comprehend,  but,  if  I  did,  in  which  I  am  totally  unable  to 
concur.  He  made  an  allusion  to  the  great  meeting  of  yesterday,  to  the 
assemblage  in  the  park  and  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Palace.  He  also 
made  observations  with  regard  to  the  Queen,  which,  in  my  opinion,  no 
meeting  of  people  in  this  country,  and  certainly  no  meeting  of  Reformers, 
ought  to  listen  to  with  approbp.tion.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  there  has 
been  no  occasion  on  which  any  Ministry  has  proposed  an  improved  repre- 
sentation of  the  people  when  the  Queen  has  not  given  her  cordial,  unhesitat- 
ing, and,  I  believe,  hearty  assent.  Let  it  be  remembered,  if  there  be  now 
at  her  side  a  Minister  who  is  opposed  to  an  improvement  of  the  representa- 
tion of  the  people,  it  is  because,  in  obedience  to  well-known  rules  and  con- 
stitutional practice,  the  decision  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  bill  of 
last  Session  rendered  it  necessary  for  her  to  take  the  course  which  she  then 
did  take.  But  the  hou.  gentleman  referred  further  to  a  supposed  absorption 
of  the  sympathies  of  the  Qiieen  in  grief  for  her  late  husband  to  the  exclusion 
of  sympathy  for  and  with  the  people.  I  am  not  accustomed  to  stand  up  in 
defence  of  those  who  are  possessors  of  crowns.  But  I  could  not  sit  here  and 
hear  that  observation  without  a  sensation  of  wonder  and  of  pain.  I  think 
there  has  been  by  many  persons  a  great  injustice  done  to  the  Queen  in 
reference  to  her  desolate  and  widowed  position.  And  I  venture  to  say  this, 
that  a  woman,  be  she  the  Queen  of  a  great  realm  or  the  wif  e  of  one  of  your 
labouring  men,  who  can  keep  alive  in  her  heart  a  great  sorrow  for  the  lost 
object  of  her  life  and  her  affections,  is  not  at  all  likely  to  be  wanting  in  a 
great  and  generous  sympathy  with  you. 


JOHN  HETWOOD,  PKINTEE,  141  AND  143,  DEANSGATE,  MANCHESTER. 


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